dollars in cash and another check for ninety-three hundred and ten dollars and thirty-eight cents.  On March 24th, according to our records, you again came in person and exchanged this new check for eighty-two hundred dollars in cash and a third check for eleven hundred and ten dollars and thirty-eight cents.  This third check we do not find has as yet been presented for payment nor has it been deposited to your account with us.  Considering the lapse of time since the check was drawn, this seems somewhat unusual and so I am writing to ask concerning it.  Mr. Cabot wishes me to add, also, that as thirteen thousand, two hundred dollars, the amount of cash drawn by you on the two occasions mentioned, is a large sum, he is, as your financial guardian—­this is the term he requests me to use—­a trifle anxious concerning it.  He cannot, he says, conceive of a use to which you could put such a sum, particularly in your present location on the Cape.  He wishes me to ask you to write him particulars in the matter.  To his request I am adding my own concerning the missing check.  A prompt reply will greatly oblige us both.  Apologizing for the inconvenience which this may cause you, and with Mr. Cabot’s sincere regards and good wishes, I am,

“Yours respectfully,

“George L. Thomas.”

Mr. Bangs’ smiles, beatific or otherwise, had so far vanished by this time that he could not summon them again that day.  He attempted to appear cheerful during supper that evening and breakfast next morning, but it was a sorrowful cheer.  Martha asked if he was sick.  He said he was not, indeed no, really, but she looked as if she did not believe him.  Primmie’s suspicions of dropsy, or some equally distressing ailment, revived.  She watched him for signs of relapse.

The letter requested an immediate reply.  That reply was neither written nor sent.  Mr. Bangs could not think of a reply which would embrace the two elements, safety and sanity.  It was impossible to tell the truth and dangerous to attempt to tell anything else.  So he did not answer the Thomas letter.

In a week he received a second one, asking if he had gotten the first.  This simply had to be acknowledged, so he did so.  He wrote that his friend was no longer interested in the stock concerning which he had inquired.  Also he returned the check for the balance of the Tinplate payment—­it had been lying in his bureau drawer ever since he brought it from Boston—­but he made no mention of what he had done with the eighty-two hundred dollars in cash nor the five thousand which he had previously drawn.  He did not refer to these sums at all.  He requested that the check for the Tinplate balance be deposited to his account and sent it in the envelope with his letter to Thomas.  Then he fearfully awaited the next blow.

It came, and in a new fashion, about a week later.  He and Martha were in the sitting room after supper when the telephone bell rang.