“I don’t want your money, Henry Burton,” said Hornby, putting back the note and the memorandum.  “I am not afraid of losing by this transaction.  You do not know me yet.”

“A queer stick,” thought Burton, as he gained the street; “but Old Nick is seldom so black as he’s painted!  He was a plaguy while, I thought, signing his name; but I wish I could sign mine to such good purpose.”

Burton laid the accepted bill, face downwards, on the bank counter, took a pen, indorsed, and passed it to the managing clerk.  The gray-headed man glanced sharply at the signature, and then at Burton, “Why, surely this is not Mr. Hornby’s signature?  It does not at all resemble it!”

“Not his signature!” exclaimed Burton; “what do you mean by that?”

“Reynolds, look here,” continued the clerk, addressing another of the bank employes.  Reynolds looked, and his immediate glance of surprise and horror at Burton revealed the impression he had formed.

“Please to step this way, Mr. Burton, to a private apartment,” said the manager.

“No—­no, I won’t,” stammered the unfortunate man, over whose mind a dreadful suspicion had glanced with the suddenness of lightning.  “I will go back to Hornby;” and he made a desperate but vain effort to snatch the fatal instrument.  Then, pale and staggering with a confused terror and bewilderment, he attempted to rush into the street.  He was stopped, with the help of the bystanders, by one of the clerks, who had jumped over the counter for the purpose.

The messenger despatched by the bankers to Hornby returned with an answer that the alleged acceptance was a forgery.  It was stated on the part of Mr. Hornby that Mr. Burton had indeed requested him to lend two hundred and fifty pounds, but he had refused.  The frantic asseverations of poor Burton were of course disregarded, and he was conveyed to jail.  An examination took place the next day before the magistrates, and the result was, that the prisoner was fully committed on the then capital charge for trial at the ensuing assize.

It were useless, as painful, to dwell upon the consternation and agony which fell upon the dwellers at Grange Farm when the terrible news reached them.  A confident belief in the perfect innocence of the prisoner, participated by most persons who knew his character and that of Hornby, and that it would be triumphantly vindicated on the day of trial, which rapidly approached, alone enabled them to bear up against the blow, and to await with trembling hope the verdict of a jury.

It was at this crisis of the drama that I became an actor in it.  I was retained for the defence by my long-known and esteemed friend Symonds, whose zeal for his client, stimulated by strong personal friendship, knew no bounds.  The acceptance, he informed me, so little resembled Hornby’s handwriting, that if Burton had unfolded the bill when given back to him by the villain, he could hardly have failed to suspect the nature of the diabolical snare set for his life.