[Illustration:  DRAWN BY FRANK CRAIG THE BANKER TOOK A LONGER TIME THAN WAS NECESSARY TO SCAN THE POOR LITTLE LIST]

With the slip of paper in his hand the banker leaned back in the chair, and took a longer time than was necessary to scan the poor little list.  In reality he was turning over in his mind the unexpected features of the case, venturing a peep at Diane as she sat meekly awaiting the end of his perusal.

“Hasn’t it occurred to you,” he asked, at last, “that you could leave your affairs in Hargous’ hands, and still turn over to your mother-in-law whatever sums he paid you?”

“Yes; but she wouldn’t take the money unless she thought it was her very own.”

“But it isn’t her very own.  It’s yours.”

“I want to make it hers.  I want to transfer it to her absolutely—­so that no one else, not even I, shall have a claim upon it.  There must be ways of doing that.”

“There are ways of doing that, but as far as she’s concerned it comes to the same thing.  If she won’t touch the income, she will refuse to accept the principal.”

“I’ve thought of that, too; and it’s among the reasons why I’ve come to you.  I hoped you’d help me—­”

“To tell a lie about it.”

“I should think it might be done without that.  My mother-in-law is a very simple woman in business affairs.  She has been used all her life to having money paid into her account, when she had only the vaguest idea as to where it came from.  If you should write to her now and say that some small funds in her name were in your hands, and that you would pay her the income at stated intervals, nothing would seem more natural to her.  She would probably attribute it to some act of foresight on her son’s part, and never think I had anything to do with it at all.”

For three or four minutes he sat in meditation, still glancing at her furtively under his shaggy brows, while she waited for his decision.

“I don’t approve of it at all,” he said, at last.

“Don’t say that,” she pleaded.  “I’ve hoped so much that you’d—­”

“At the same time I won’t say that the thing isn’t feasible.  I’ll just verify these bonds and certificates, and—­”

He took them, one by one, from the bag, and, having compared them with the list, replaced them.

“And,” he continued, “you can come and see me again at this time to-morrow.”

“Oh, thank you!”

“You can thank me when I’ve done something—­not before.  Very likely I sha’n’t do anything at all.  But in the mean while you may leave your satchel here, and not run the risk of being robbed in the street.  If I refuse you to-morrow—­as is probable I shall—­I’ll send a man with you to see you and your money safely back to Hargous.”

He touched a bell, and a young man entered.  On directions from the banker the clerk left the room, taking the bag with him; while Diane, feeling that her errand had been largely accomplished, rose to leave.