Final answer:
The banker in 'The Bet' ensures the lawyer's letter is secured in his safe, displaying his focus on financial and legal procedures rather than understanding the story's moral about the emptiness of greed and materialism.
Step-by-step explanation:
At the end of "The Bet" by Anton Chekhov, the banker, who had bet two million rubles that the young lawyer wouldn't stay solitary confinement for fifteen years, finds himself on the brink of financial ruin as the end of the bet approaches. Knowing that if the lawyer remains in confinement for the last few hours and wins the bet, the banker will be ruined, the banker contemplates murder. However, he discovers that the lawyer has renounced the bet, leaving behind a letter explaining his enlightenment and renunciation of material wealth. The banker then acts contradictory to the spirit of this moral revelation by sneaking into the lawyer's room to take the letter and secure it in his safe. This action reveals that the banker is focused on his financial situation and the societal norms of protecting evidential documents like a lawyer but misses the deeper lesson of the futility of greed and the value of spiritual wealth that the lawyer exhibits, thus illustrating that he has missed the point of the story's moral.