Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure. (Worth every penny!) An excerpt from the beginning of: CHAPTER I. - "WOE IS ME!": DING, dong! Boom, boom! Cling, clang, cling, clang! Pomfret is by no means a noisy city, and when the great bell of St.Mark's peals out lustily between midnight and morning, it means trouble. It tells of fire or wreck, danger or death, and it appeals for help to all strong hands and generous hearts. Clang, clang, clang! It is ringing wildly now, faster and faster, and already there are answering sounds in the dark, tree-shadowed streets, footsteps hastening from southward, voices faint, and then louder. Ding, dong, ding, dong! The appeal is loud but brief. Less than twenty rapid strokes of the bell; then a man emerges from the church, bounds down the broad steps, and calls out to the unseen comers,
"Quick, for God's sake!" "What is it?" comes an answering voice. "Murder!" In another moment they are close together, peering at each other through the dark. "You, Deering?" "Morse! Redding! Thank heaven!" The ringer seizes an arm of each and fairly drags them back and towards a building which they have just passed. "It's Matchin," he says, while he urges them on." The bank," and now they note that their guide is trembling violently and that he speaks with evident effort. The Church of St. Mark and the Pomfret Bank both stand upon Main Street, upon the same side, and with only the width of an intersecting street between them. But while the stately church opens its great entrance-doors upon Broadway, the bank faces the lower street, and, now that they have faced about, and are retracing their steps, the two first comers see that the door of the bank stands half open, and that there is a glimmering light from within. The bank proper is in the rear of the building, and is approached by a wide hall of entrance, flanked on each side by spacious offices, and the glimmering light comes from the bank itself. The door at the end of the hall stands half open, and the dim rays filter through. "This way," says the man who has led them thither, and he puts out his hand to push the door wide open. "Stop!" cries the man nearest him. "Look!" he points down ward, and they see, projecting just beyond the door, a human hand. "My God!" cries Deering, "he has moved! I thought he was dead! Quick!" springing swiftly through the half opening. "He may be saved—perhaps." The place is dimly lighted by a low burning lamp against the side wall, but it sheds all its glow upon the face of the man who lies almost beneath it, and close against the door, and the three bend together and peer into that bruised and blood-stained face.