pounds in his pocket?"

"He did."

"Humph! My wife has an idea about it, and she may be right--"

"What idea?"

"Well, she fancies--women are so clever, you know, at putting
themselves inside people's motives --she fancies that he was
tempted, that he did actually take the money, and that he has been
concealing himself these three months in some wild part of the
country, struggling possibly with his conscience all the time,
and daring neither to abscond with his booty nor to come back and
restore it."

"But now that he has come back?"

"That is the point. She conceives that he has probably thrown
himself upon the company's mercy, made restitution of the money,
and, being forgiven, is permitted to carry the business through as
if nothing whatever had happened."

"The last," I replied, "is an impossible case. Mrs. Jelf thinks
like a generous and delicate minded woman, but not in the least like
a board of railway directors. They would never carry forgiveness
so far."

"I fear not; and yet it is the only conjecture that bears a semblance
of likelihood. However we can run over to Clayborough to-morrow and