The cash-box, over the contents of which he lingered, counting note by note and coin by coin, several times repeated, next took its place with the books.

The heavy iron door swung to, the key traversed noiselessly the delicate and complicated wards, was removed and deposited in a place of safety; and, yet unrecovered from his mood of abstraction, the clerk left the store, and took his way homeward.
From that hour Edward Claire was to be the subject of a fierce temptation.

He had admitted an evil suggestion, and had warmed it in the earth of his mind, even to germination.

Already a delicate root had penetrated the soil, and was extracting food therefrom.

Oh! why did he not instantly pluck it out, when the hand of an infant would have sufficed in strength for the task?
Why did he let it remain, shielding it from the cold winds of rational truth and the hot sun of good affections, until it could live, sustained by its own organs of appropriation and nutrition?
Why did he let it remain until its lusty growth gave sad promise of an evil tree, in which birds of night find shelter and build nests for their young?
Let us introduce another scene and another personage, who will claim, to some extent, the reader's attention.
There were two small but neatly, though plainly, furnished rooms, in the second story of a house located in a retired street.