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218 centrate on the matter in hand. "Why couldn't Drew wait one month more?"

"I didn't know then. He always seemed prosperous, though I fancied he was sailing pretty close to the wind himself. I hadn't the faintest idea of his real motive. I owed him all told about twelve thousand dollars; but he said he would return all my notes and call it square if I would get ten thousand for him then, and he told me how it could be done."

"When was this, Mr. Chalmers?"

"About six weeks ago. I needn't tell you what a rotter I felt, forging my mother's name; but I knew she would save me from exposure if the worst came to the worst, even though she had agreed with my stepfather not to let me have another cent; and I could pay her back as soon as I came into my own money. Of course I didn't dream then what was coming; and she died without ever knowing what I had done.

"I made the check out to myself, endorsed it, and gave it to Farley Drew; and he returned all my notes. But when Dad and old Titheredge were settling up her estate after her death, the check didn't come back from the bank with those my mother herself had drawn. I didn't know what to make of it, and was in a blue funk for fear the people at the bank had discovered the forgery and were investigating it quietly. I went to Farley Drew, and then for the first time learned the sort of man he was, and how I had put myself in his power.

"Sergeant, he was in no such need of ready money as I had imagined; he had not cashed that check, nor had he ever intended to do so. He was going to hold it over my