“You’re an uncommonly cautious young man,” Mr. Nowell exclaimed at last.  “You’ll never stand in your own light by being too anxious to oblige other people.  I daresay, though, you could speak fast enough, if it was made worth your while.”

“I don’t see what is to make it worth my while,” Luke Tulliver answered coolly.  “My duty is to my dead master, and those that are to come after him.  I don’t want strangers coming sniffing and prying into the stock.  Mr. Nowell’s books were kept so that I couldn’t cheat him out of a sixpence, or the value of a sixpence; and I mean to hand ’em over to the lawyer in a manner that will do me credit.  My master has not been a generous master to me, considering how I’ve served him, and I’ve got nothing but my character to look to; but that I have got, and I don’t want it tampered with.”

“Who is going to tamper with it?” said Mr. Nowell.  “So you’ll hand over the stock-books to the lawyer, will you, without a leaf missing, or an erasure, or an item marked off as sold that never was sold, or any little dodges of that kind, eh, Mr. Tulliver?”

“Of course,” answered the shopman, looking defiantly at the questioner, who was leaning across the counter with folded arms, staring at Luke Tulliver with an ironical grin upon his countenance.

“Then you are a very remarkable man.  I should have thought such a chance as a death as unexpected as my—­as old Mr. Nowell’s would have made the fortune of a confidential clerk like you.”

“I’m not a thief,” answered Mr. Tulliver with an air of virtuous indignation; “and you can’t know much about old Jacob Nowell if you think that anybody could cheat him, living or dead.  There’s not an entry in the book that isn’t signed with his initials, in his own hand.  When a thing was sold and crossed off the book, he put his initials to the entry of the sale.  He went through the books every night till a week ago, and he’d as soon have cut his own head off as omit to do it, so long as he could see the figures in the book or hold his pen.”

Mr. Medler the lawyer came in while Percival Nowell and the shopman were talking.  He had been away from his office upon business that evening, and had only just received the tidings of the silversmith’s death.

Luke Tulliver handed him the books and keys of the cases in which the tarnished plate was exhibited.  He went into all the details of the business carefully, setting his seal upon books and papers, and doing all that he could to make matters secure without hindrance to the carrying on of the trade.

He was surprised to hear that Mrs. Holbrook was in the house, and proposed paying his respects to her that evening; but this Mr. Nowell prevented.  She was tired and out of spirits, he told the attorney; it would be better for him to see her next day.  It was convenient to Mr. Nowell to forget Marian’s intention of returning to Hampshire by an early train on the following morning at this juncture.