cip-and int I'm going out to Bremen on business for my uncle, and I'm cocksure to make enough out of that to clear you when I get back.' Of course the mean skunks had a detective to arrest me at the German steamer, but they did n't look for me at the West India boat. When they found I was gone where the woodbine twineth, they made the best of it, and did wait.' brain, but it is curiously well put together." "I should think, Mr. Pennybacker, that your own judgment was enough. You knew Mr. Price, you know me." "It ought to be, it ought to be, but somehow the obstinate persistence of that boy upstairs bothers me. He seems as sane as I am, and why should he tell such an improbable story in the face and eyes of us all? It is n't easy to see. It is like what you said to your Bible class last Sunday about miracles, in reply to that conceited fellow from the mills. People don't tell things where there is manifest evidence to the contrary unless they are true. But why do you hesitate? Just say out and out, I'm Robert Kenworthy, and never was Cresswell Price.' You are the only person who can't be mistaken in your knowledge of this fact. And as for taking your word, I'd do that against fifty such men as my nephew. He has lied to me, and you never have." There was a pause. Price felt that he should have answered on the spot, categorically, and he had not done so ; every moment of hesitation was virtually an admission. The hour had come when he must burn his ships, cost what it might. Here the invalid broke down again, and went off into incoherent mutterings; and for a couple of days his condition was one of alternate delirium and exhaustion. The trained nurse appeared on the second of these days, and Price was relieved from the night-watching, much to his own comfort. It was on the evening of the fourth day that the warden rang for Robert to come to his library. He had just left the sick-room. "Robert," he said, as his butler answered the summons, "here is a serious complication. My poor nephew is very weak, but apparently himself again except on one point. He has insisted to me that you are the late rector of St. Faith's, the Rev. Cresswell Price, and says that you were the forger of that check for five hundred, and that he cashed it for you just before he sailed for South America. He declares that he is very penitent for some irregularities of his, which he has made good, and that he was led into them by your offering to sign my name to certain documents which he states he used as collateral to obtain credit for loans which he has since paid up, and has destroyed the papers. He says that you forced him to cash that check by threats of revealing the whole story to me, and that this was the price of your work. He winds up this absurd story by saying that you proposed to him to forge a will in his favor, and then intimated that the will would very shortly be able to be "But — but — hang it, man, you can't used, and that in your situation as butler keep still under such an accusation, if you could insure the result. Of course you can clear yourself! Don't you see, this is all the raving of a disordered it blocks your coming back to the min can "Mr. Pennybacker," he said, "I not answer you as you expect and wish, for the truth is that I was, and still am, Cresswell Price. So far your nephew is right." The warden stared as if the ghost of his grandfather had appeared. Then his face darkened. "If that is so, why is not the rest true?" "I can only speak as to the last point, the proposal about the will. That never passed between us; was never suggested by me to him, or by him to me. That is a clear hallucination of his illness. As to the rest, I am not free to speak." istry, and just as you seem to have got hold of that work as never before, and it ruins you for a servant? The Good Book says we can't serve God and Mammon, but you are out on both sides. I don't see how I can keep you in my house with this hanging over you, or give you a reference for another place. I must say, if I'm asked why you leave me, that I dismissed you when I found you came into my service under a false name, and that you could n't explain very serious charges." "If you wish," returned Robert, in his thorough servant manner, "I can leave to-night. I have time to catch the 11.20 train for the city." "If I wish! I don't wish. I would n't have had this happen for ten thousand dollars in government bonds. To-night! I would n't turn a dog out at night, much less a man who has served me as faithfully as you have. Besides, you would n't leave me in the lurch till I can get another man, and that may not be under a fortnight; let alone sickness in the house, and all that. Then, too, if, as you say, you are not Robert Kenworthy, you are my rector and my guest, and how the dev-beg your pardon, dominie—how the mischief can I explain it to Mrs. Pennybacker? See here, Robert Price, - Cresswell Kenworthy, I mean, -why can't you clear this all up? If you can, you have only to go to town with me tomorrow, leave me at the bank, go to the nearest hotel, and come back to Bilhope on the 5.20 P. M. as your former self, disappeared last year, temporary alienation, sick among strangers, recover your memory of who you are, and come back. Only we must have a straight story about the check business." The look of pain and perplexity came back into the warden's face as he gazed anxiously at the one opposite and saw no responsive look. Just then the nurse called from the head of the stairs, "Mr. Pennybacker, will you please come up? There's a change." will not last long, I think, but he will never regain consciousness or the power of speech." "Has the doctor been sent for?" "Yes," replied the nurse, "I did that before I called; but he told me yesterday that this might happen at any time." The rector sank into a chair, as if he too had been stricken. He had hoped to the last, and now fate shut the door in his face. He thought, "The one man who could clear me, the one man who could release me from my obligation as a priest and allow me to explain, will never speak again." Then the sense of his office came back to him. He stepped to the bedside, felt the scarce perceptible flutter of the pulse, and, to the warden's astonishment, knelt and offered the com- · mendatory prayers for the dying. A spasm passed over the sick man's face, and then came the settling of that profound calm which cannot be mistaken. The nurse came forward, straightened the body, closed the eyes, and drew the sheet over the face. "It is all over," he said. The uncle sat motionless, with bowed Robert Kenworthy, or Cresswell he hardly knew which to call head. Price, himself, left the room quietly, and went to his own chamber. He would pack up nothing; he merely took his overcoat and hat, called one of the other servants to close the front door after him, and went out into the darkness. He was halfway down the avenue, when he almost ran into a man hastening in the opposite direction. "Is Pennybacker in?" inquired the stranger breathlessly. "Yes, I left him in the house. Mr. Pennybacker, Jr., has just died." "Good gracious, Price!" exclaimed the other, "did you drop from above? Certainly Providence sends you here just now." learnt from the servant who let Robert out that his butler had left the house, and was now come back with Baldwin, the lawyer, who was a perfect Don Quixote in the defense of a distressed and impecunious client. Visions of blackmail, threats of a suit for defamation, and the prospect of a general bother floated before his mind. The opening of the attack was not of a sort to restore com "Pennybacker," began Baldwin, in his cross-examination tones, "what became of that check which you said was, or might be, a forgery? 66 "I have it in my safe upstairs." "What do you mean, Mr. Baldwin?" "Mean? That you're the man I wanted most, and hoped least to see. You've turned up in the nick of time, just as I was coming over to tell Penny-posure. backer that I've got to the bottom of the mystery, and to consult with him how best to discover you, if you were in the land of the living, as- - I believe you are," he added, grasping the rector by the arm. "Yes, you materialize properly. But see here, I can't stop to talk in the dark. Come on, come on. Were you with Augustus when he died? Did he say anything? Has he owned up? Breaking it to his uncle will be a nasty business, if he has n't; but your reappearance makes it inevitable, and I count on you to help me." "To break what, Mr. Baldwin?" "Why, the whole rascality of that con- no, conscienceless scoundrel. I have it in black and white, though not much white about it except your part." By this time they had reached the front entrance, and as the door was opened the hall lamplight fell full upon the companion of Mr. Baldwin. ex "Eh? what? Bless my soul!" claimed the junior warden. "Why, are you the butler? I was sure, when I heard your voice, it was Price come back. Here, you must forget every word I've been saying; at least hold your tongue forever. Or no; on second thought, I must go through with it, and you will be witness. Here, come into the library, and somebody tell Pennybacker I must see him at once." Then he sat down opposite Robert, and stared at him with all his might. It seemed almost an age before the banker appeared; and when he did, his face was far from reassuring. He had "Very good; keep it there! Now, when was that five hundred paid, and to whom?" "I don't know: that was the trouble." "To whose account was it chargeable?" "To St. Faith's, the rector's sal ary." 66 Very good! Was it an overdraft?" "No; close up to the mark, though, - not five dollars left." "Good again! Now, if Price got that money, he got his own, did n't he?" "Yes." "If he did n't get it, it was his loss, not the bank's?" "Yes, unless he disputed his indorsement, and could prove it not his." "Once more, good. Now, whoever got that money, he did not.' "Who did get it, then?" "I'll show you. It was paid in gold. Gold is n't easily traced, but this happened to be all in eagles, the first of a new issue, fifty of them." "How do you know?" - "Because I have them in my safe at this moment, if the Safe Deposit Company has n't skipped. I got them in exchange for the like amount, bating a small discount, in Bolivian doubloons. I had a lot of these paid in settlement of Sanchez v. Ruddiman, a salvage case, and I was holding on to them till I could pass them over to my client; and somebody knew it, and made me an offer. The exchange was about fifteen dollars against me, but as I might have to pay over at par, the United States gold was convenient. I did it, too, as a matter of accommodation to a friend who was going to the Isthmus, and did not care to have it known where he was going. He said he suspected he was shadowed, and if he went to any broker to buy South American gold, or get exchange on South America, he might be arrested by creditors." Pennybacker gave a little start and a muttered ejaculation. Baldwin went on: "You ought to know who would be the only man, ex'cept yourself, who could get that gold out of the Plutonian, and substitute a check for the same, without having it appear on the bank's books." Pennybacker sat silent, with his eyes cast down. "Furthermore, I hand you the full story, written out, and sworn to before a notary, of all the transactions in which your notes were used as collateral. Those notes are all retired, and there is no more of that paper afloat, but this will show who profited by the business. These notes were all signed by the party benefited by them, and indorsed with your signature, and they were made on your private blanks with the special water-mark. You know how you got that paper made and printed or engraved, rather-for your exclusive use, and whether you ever supplied any one with those blanks or not, don't you?" Pennybacker gave a groan. Price's face flushed, and his eyes flashed eagerly. "Now, one question more. This time I ask it of Mr. Price, because if he is n't Mr. Price he cannot answer it. Did you ever, at the request of any member of this family, not the warden here, write signatures in imitation of his, the party requesting it, to be used as an autographic test?" 66 "Yes," said Price, before he had time to bethink himself; "that is, I”— "That will do, sir. No fencing with the court, if you please. You betray no confidence. Confession is confession, but your previous knowledge is not af fected by subsequent revelations. When you wrote that name on slips of paper, did you perceive anything peculiar about the paper?" "Only that it was very slippery and smooth. All but one, I remember, were failures, and that led me to notice it. But they were destroyed; that is, sheI mean to say 'it' tore them up and threw them into the fire." "It did, did it? If the court understand herself, and I think he do, it,' as you very properly say, threw blank slips of common paper away, and kept the others. No, Mr. Price, I'm not the gentleman whom you require all sponsors to renounce in baptism, but only a lawyer, and, in spite of calumny to the contrary, do not invoke him as my patron. I have followed up hints and blind clues, and what I guessed you have confirmed, till I know it as well as if I had been present. Somebody tried the autographic dodge on a professional penman, and it did n't work; but you, dear old guileless Israelite, walked straight into the trap." Baldwin paused. Pennybacker simply said, "All this rather improbable story may be true, but I must look over these papers first." The others sat in silence while, frowning and evidently pausing to make little mental calculations, the warden ran his eyes quickly over the sworn statement. When he finished, he looked Baldwin full in the face, and said interrogatively, "Well?" "Yes, well? What is the matter with my case?" "Would you like to go to a jury with it? Do you suppose twelve men of the average intellectual capacity of such would give you a verdict on this evidence, if the judge, which I don't believe, would -- let it in? There is but one man who could furnish satisfactory proof to clear the accused, and he lies dead in the room above. As for the rest, my name has been forged and used. I have the document, and can produce the man whose name is on it. I can swear to the fact that paper of like character, to large amounts, has been in existence, taken up, and replaced over and over again, and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, the signatures all came from the same hand. It is not necessary to show how much benefit the forger -the writer, I mean got from the transaction. You know the ruling in Regina v. Culbertson, 3d of Barnwell and Adolphus." (The president, like most moneyed men, had a fair knowledge of banking law, and thought he was a master of it.) "There it was allowed sufficient to show that a writing-master was accustomed to furnish signatures at a sovereign apiece. The court held that it was not required to show the particular sum paid for the forgery in evidence; it was enough that the signature was forged, and that the prisoner wrote it. It was also held that the defense offered, that the writing was to be used in preparing a lithographic facsimile, must not be inferred, but must be directly and affirmatively proved." "But, Pennybacker, you don't mean, you can't mean, to prosecute the matter now? If you do, all I can say is, that I will put twenty witnesses on the stand to swear that this is Robert Kenworthy, and not Cresswell Price; and if need be, that he wasn't within a hundred miles of Bilhope when this happened. Hang it, man, I thought I was doing you a favor by furnishing moral evidence of an innocent man's innocence." "Stop a moment, Baldwin," said the warden quietly; and then, for the first time since he came into the room, he turned to the third person in the library. "Robert Kenworthy," said he, "will you repeat the declaration you made Baldwin stared in blank astonishment. The challenged man did not hesitate. He stepped to the table in the centre of the room, laid his hand on the open Bible there, and said, "I repeat what I told you. I am the Rev. Cresswell Price, and I have been living in your house as Robert Kenworthy, your servant." "Knew I was right," said Baldwin to himself. "The voice in the dark was not to be mistaken, but the sight of him put me all out." "I can swear to it, too," said the warden, "not on any legal grounds, like my brother warden here, but because you say it; and I want to add that I am comforted through the saddest experience of my life, and shall be as long as I live, in the thought that I have known one true Christian man, and that I can restore him to my fullest confidence and esteem. Baldwin, I thank you, I bless Heaven, for clearing up this. Reverend and dear Mr. Price, I can only say that these terrible papers exonerate you from all suspicion. We never have filled the rectorship of St. Faith's, we never have made it vacant, and while I am vestryman and warden, and while you live, it never shall be filled by any other than the best clergyman in this or any diocese in the land, the one who fills it now." Then, with a half smile, he added, "I call you to witness, Baldwin, that I'm sincere in this, for I lose the best servant I ever had in my employ. If I could only keep Robert Kenworthy to wait on the rector at dinner, I should have nothing to ask; but as I can't, I |