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 that perhaps the deed had been drawn without your knowledge."

Balladhoo handed back the document with a nerveless hand. He looked again through dim eyes at the stranger, and said quietly, but with an awful inward effort, "You have my answer—I knew of it."

The recording angel set down the words in the Book of Life to the old man's credit in heaven. They were not true.

The stranger bowed low and retired.

Christian leaped up and took his father by both hands, but his eyes were not raised to the troubled face.

"This is worse than all," he said, "but God knows everything. He will make me answer for it."

"What is the debt?" asked Balladhoo, with an effort to be calm.

"Money squandered in England."

The old man shook his head with an impatient gesture.

"I mean how much?"

"A thousand pounds." There was a pause.

"We can meet it," said Balladhoo; "and now, my son, cheer up; set your face the right way, and His servant shall not be ashamed."

Christian strode up and down the room. His agitation was greater than before. "I feel less than a man," he said. "Oh, but a hidden sin is a mean thing, father—a dwarfing, petrifying, corroding, unmanly thing. And to think that I could descend so low as to try to conceal it—a part of it—by consorting with a gang of lawless fellows—by a vulgar outrage that might have