"Bad luck ter yez!" mentally ejaculated Pat, whom curiosity and the fascination of his own impending fate had drawn within earshot.
"What do you intend to do with me?" asked Haldane, his brow contracting, and his face growing sullen under Mr. Arnot's harsh, bitter words.
"Do! What is done with clerks who steal their employers' money?"
"I did not steal your money," said Haldane impetuously.
"Where is it, then?" asked Mr. Arnot, with a cold sneer.
"Be careful, now," said the policeman; "you are getting excited, and you may say what you'll wish you hadn't."
"Mr. Arnot, do you mean to have it go abroad to all the world that I have deliberately stolen that thousand dollars?" asked the young man desperately.
"Here are the empty envelopes. Where is the money?" said his employer, in the same cool, inexorable tone.
"I met two sharpers from New York, who made a fool of me--"
"Made a fool of you! that was impossible," interrupted Mr. Arnot with a harsh laugh.
"Dastard that you are, to strike a man when he is down," thundered Haldane wrathfully. "Since everything must go abroad, the truth shall go, and not foul slander. I got to drinking with these men from New York, and missed the train--"
"Be careful, now; think what you are saying," interrupted the policeman.
"He charges me with what amounts to a bald theft, and in a way that all will hear of the charge, and shall I not defend my self?"
"O, certainly, if you can prove that you did not take the money--only remember, what you say will appear in the evidence."
"What evidence?" cried the bewildered and excited youth with an oath. "If you will only give me a chance, you shall have all the evidence there is in a sentence. These blacklegs from New York appeared like gentlemen. A friend in town introduced them to me, and, after losing the train, we agreed to spend the evening together. They called for cards, and they won the money."
Mr. Arnot's dark cheek had grown more swarthy at the epithet of "dastard," but he coolly waited until Haldane had finished, and then asked in his former tone: "Did they take the money from your person and open the envelopes, one carefully, the other recklessly, before they won it?"
Guided by this keen questioning, memory flashed back its light on the events of the past night, and Haldane saw himself opening the first package, certainly, and he remembered how it was done. He trembled, and his face, that had been so flushed, grew very pale. For a moment he was so overwhelmed by a realization of his act, and its threatening consequences, that his tongue refused to plead in his behalf. At last he stammered: "I did not mean to take the money--only to borrow a little of it, and return it that same night They got me drunk--I was not myself. But I assure you it will all be returned. I can--"