tears that were gathering in his eyes. At that moment there came a loud double knock at the street door—Mr. Wetherall started from his seat, rushed to the door of the room and turned the key, and then trembling like a leaf in the autumn blast, he sank pale and breathless on a chair.
"It is only some women—visitors to your wife," said Mr. Simpson, interpreting his fear aright. It proved so, and Mrs. Wetherall being denied, they went away; but this little shock had broken the ice. Mr. Simpson turned round, and advancing to Mr. Wetherall, held out his hand, saying—"Come, Sir, let us talk over this matter coolly;" and leading him back to his former seat, took one beside him—"Perhaps," said he, "you have some interest in the person who has been guilty of this breach of trust?"
But Mr. Wetherall was not a person to have recourse to a subterfuge on such an occasion. He understood the man he had to deal with; and he now opened his bosom, and poured out the whole truth, as he might have done to an earthly father, or to his Father in heaven; and never was confidence better placed. "It was my first and my last crime," said he. "An
