“All right; I want to see him.”

“Get into my coupe, and I’ll take you to his office.”

Mr. Belcher went to the drawer that contained his forged document.  Then he went back to Talbot, and said: 

“Would Cavendish come here?”

“Not he!  If you want to see him, you must go where he is.  He wouldn’t walk into your door to accommodate you if he knew it.”

Mr. Belcher was afraid of Cavendish, as far as he could be afraid of any man.  The lawyer had bluffed everybody at the dinner-party, and, in his way, scoffed at everybody.  He had felt in the lawyer’s presence the contact of a nature which possessed more self-assertion and self-assurance than his own.  Be had felt that Cavendish could read him, could handle him, could see through his schemes.  He shrank from exposing himself, even to the scrutiny of this sharp man, whom he could hire for any service.  But he went again to the drawer, and, with an excited and trembling hand, drew forth the accursed document.  With this he took the autographs on which his forgeries were based.  Then he sat down by himself, and thought the matter all over, while Talbot waited in another room.  It was only by a desperate determination that he started at last, called Talbot down stairs, put on his hat, and went out.

It seemed to the proprietor, as he emerged from his house, that there was something weird in the morning light.  He looked up, and saw that the sky was clear.  He looked down, and the street was veiled in a strange shadow.  The boys looked at him as if they were half startled.  Inquisitive faces peered at him from a passing omnibus.  A beggar laughed as he held out his greasy hat.  Passengers paused to observe him.  All this attention, which he once courted and accepted as flattery and fame, was disagreeable to him.

“Good God!  Toll, what has happened since last night?” he said, as he sank back upon the satin cushions of the coupe.

“General, I don’t think you’re quite well.  Don’t die now.  We can’t spare you yet.”

“Die?  Do I look like it?” exclaimed Mr. Belcher, slapping his broad chest.  “Don’t talk to me about dying.  I haven’t thought about that yet.”

“I beg your pardon.  You know I didn’t mean to distress you.”

Then the conversation dropped, and the carriage wheeled on.  The roll of vehicles, the shouting of drivers, the panoramic scenes, the flags swaying in the morning sky, the busy throngs that went up and down Broadway, were but the sights and sounds of a dimly apprehended dream.  He was journeying toward guilt.  What would be its end?  Would he not be detected in it at the first step?  How could he sit before the hawk-eyed man whom he was about to meet without in some way betraying his secret?

When the coupe stopped, Talbot roused his companion with difficulty.

“This can’t be the place, Toll.  We haven’t come half a mile.”

“On the contrary, we have come three miles.”