There is a saying that things are “too good to be true,” but when Mr. Taynton sat down to his lunch that day, he felt that the converse of the proverb was the correcter epigram.  Things could be so good that they must be true, and here, still ringing in his ears was one of them—­Morris—­it was thus he phrased it to himself—­was “paid off,” or, in more business-like language, the fortune of which Mr. Taynton was trustee was intact again, and, like a tit-bit for a good child, there was an additional five or six hundred pounds for him who had managed the trust so well.  Mr. Taynton could not help feeling somehow that he deserved it; he had increased Morris’s fortune since he had charge of it by L10,000.  And what a lesson, too, he had had, so gently and painlessly taught him!  No one knew better than he how grievously wrong he had got, in gambling with trust money.  Yet now it had come right:  he had repaired the original wrong; on Monday he would reinvest this capital in those holdings which he had sold, and Morris’s L40,000 (so largely the result of careful and judicious investment) would certainly stand the scrutiny of any who could possibly have any cause to examine his ledgers.  Indeed there would be nothing to see.  Two years ago Mr. Morris Assheton’s fortune was invested in certain railway debentures and Government stock.  It would in a few days’ time be invested there again, precisely as it had been.  Mr. Taynton had not been dealing in gilt-edged securities lately, and could not absolutely trust his memory, but he rather thought that the repurchase could be made at a somewhat smaller sum than had been realised by their various sales dating from two years ago.  In that case there was a little more sub rosa reward for this well-inspired justice, weighed but featherwise against the overwhelming relief of the knowledge he could make wrong things right again, repair his, yes, his scoundrelism.

How futile, too, now, was Mills’s threatened blackmail!  Mills might, if he chose, proclaim on any convenient housetop, that his partner had gambled with Morris’s L40,000 that according to the ledgers was invested in certain railway debentures and other gilt-edged securities.  In a few days, any scrutiny might be made of the securities lodged at the County Bank, and assuredly among them would be found those debentures, those gilt-edged securities exactly as they appeared in the ledgers.  Yet Mr. Taynton, so kindly is the nature of happiness, contemplated no revengeful step on his partner; he searched his heart and found that no trace of rancour against poor Mills was hoarded there.