“Yes, that’s a fact.  I’m glad you have found it out.  The cash has been over about two hundred dollars for several days, and I have tried in vain to find where the error lay.  Strange, after adding up these columns for some twenty times or more, I should have still been wrong in these figures.  Let me strike a balance for you now, so that you can count the cash, and see that there is just this amount over.”

This dispelled all suspicions from the mind of Millard, if any had found a place there.

“No,” he replied, “I hav n’t time now.  I have no doubt of it being right.  Make the corrections required.”

And as he thus remarked, he turned away from the desk.

Sanford trembled from head to foot the moment his employer left him.  He tried to make the corrections, but his hand shook so that he could not hold the pen.  In a little while he mastered this agitation so far as to be externally composed.  He then changed the erroneous figures.  But this did not make the matter straight.  The cash account now called for two hundred dollars more than the funds on hand would show.  If the money should be counted before he could make other false entries, he would be discovered and disgraced.  And now that errors had been discovered, it was but natural to suppose that Mr. Millard would glance less casually at the account than he had been in the habit of doing.  At last, he determined to erase a few pages back certain figures, and insert others in their places, and carry down from thence the error by a regular series of erasures and new entries.  This he did so skilfully, that none but the eye of suspicion could have detected it.  It was some weeks before he again ventured to repeat these acts.  When he did so, he permitted the surplus cash to remain in the drawer for eight or ten days, so that if a discovery happened to be made, the balance on hand would show that it was an error.  But Mr. Millard thought no more about the matter, and the dishonest clerk was permitted to prosecute his base conduct undetected.  In this way month after month passed, until the defalcation rose to over a thousand dollars.  Nightly Sanford attended places of public amusement, usually accompanied by a young lady, the daughter of some respectable citizen, who knew as little of the habits and character of the young man as did his employer himself.  Among those with whom he had become intimate was Harriet Meadows, the daughter of a merchant possessing a high sense of honor and considerable wealth.  Mr. Meadows, so soon as the young man began to visit at his house, gave him to understand by his manner that he was not welcome.  This was so plainly done that there was no room for mistake in the matter.  Piqued at this, Sanford determined that he would keep the daughter’s company in spite of her crusty old father.  Harriet was gay and thoughtless, and had been flattered by the attentions of Sanford.  She met him a few times after his repulse, at balls, and hesitated not