Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/297

Rh '"If you love your father," said he, "you'll kick that artful hypocrite Banwell out of doors; he is robbing your father, and if you intend to marry that girl Helen, he'll rob you!"

'I inquired, with surprise, how he came to know this, and who informed him that I intended to marry Helen.

'"Oh," he replied, "I'm an old fox, and when there's a wolf in the kennel the fox begins to open his eyes! I have only this proof as yet: I went on a voyage of discovery yesterday—it was Sunday, as you know, and your father and I only were at home—into Banwell's room, and found this between the leaves of a book concealed under his pillow."

'He handed me a folded paper. I knew that Banwell was an excellent penman, and could write almost anything he liked, and in any way he liked, but I was not prepared for the curious evidence which it afforded me of one—and apparently no trifling one— of his means of private amusement. It was a paper of signatures—my father's, mine, my mother's, my sister's, and Helen's—exact imitations, repeated over and over again. I was utterly confounded. I had believed Banwell to be perfectly honest and true; but this paper opened up a terrible vista of doubts and complications, and perhaps ruin in the near future. If he was artful and unprincipled, everything in the house was in his power. Mr. Kerford called to my remembrance the fact of some suspicious-looking characters sauntering into the shop, sometimes making purchases, and often only inquiries, holding private conversations with him. When he saw they were observed he betrayed impatience, and spoke as if angry with them for their idleness and impertinence.

'"There is something brewing," said Kerford, putting back the paper into his pocket, "and we must try and find it out; but as yet let him see no change in you, and not a