Cleaver.  With the fear of being found out?

Falder. [Very low] Yes.

The judge.  Didn’t it occur to you that the only thing for you to do was to confess to your employers, and restore the money?

Falder.  I was afraid. [There is silence]

Cleaver.  You desired, too, no doubt, to complete your design of taking this woman away?

Falder.  When I found I’d done a thing like that, to do it for nothing seemed so dreadful.  I might just as well have chucked myself into the river.

Cleaver.  You knew that the clerk Davis was about to leave England —­didn’t it occur to you when you altered this cheque that suspicion would fall on him?

Falder.  It was all done in a moment.  I thought of it afterwards.

Cleaver.  And that didn’t lead you to avow what you’d done?

Falder. [Sullenly] I meant to write when I got out there—­I would have repaid the money.

The judge.  But in the meantime your innocent fellow clerk might have been prosecuted.

Falder.  I knew he was a long way off, your lordship.  I thought there’d be time.  I didn’t think they’d find it out so soon.

Frome.  I might remind your lordship that as Mr. Walter How had the cheque-book in his pocket till after Davis had sailed, if the discovery had been made only one day later Falder himself would have left, and suspicion would have attached to him, and not to Davis, from the beginning.

The judge.  The question is whether the prisoner knew that suspicion would light on himself, and not on Davis. [To Falder sharply] Did you know that Mr. Walter How had the cheque-book till after Davis had sailed?

Falder.  I—­I—­thought—­he——­

The judge.  Now speak the truth-yes or no!

Falder. [Very low] No, my lord.  I had no means of knowing.

The judge.  That disposes of your point, Mr. Frome.

     [Frome bows to the judge]

Cleaver.  Has any aberration of this nature ever attacked you before?

Falder. [Faintly] No, sir.

Cleaver.  You had recovered sufficiently to go back to your work that afternoon?

Falder.  Yes, I had to take the money back.

Cleaver.  You mean the nine pounds.  Your wits were sufficiently keen for you to remember that?  And you still persist in saying you don’t remember altering this cheque. [He sits down]

Falder.  If I hadn’t been mad I should never have had the courage.

Frome. [Rising] Did you have your lunch before going back?

Falder.  I never ate a thing all day; and at night I couldn’t sleep.

Frome.  Now, as to the four minutes that elapsed between Davis’s going out and your cashing the cheque:  do you say that you recollect nothing during those four minutes?