T

HE paper-boy dropped the evening paper at the office door and clicked noisily down the stone corridor. Heywood looked at his watch. It was halfpast four.

"You may go home now, Miss Carter,' he said to his stenographer when she handed him his paper.

He desired to be alone to look upon his name in print, but most of all to face clearly the consequences of his decision as he had faced them again and again in the last few days. He was not used to dwell upon the inevitable, to worry over consequences. But this was different. He turned to the second page, and there indeed was a double-column cut of himself and headlines in all the cold reality of type announcing his appointment as District Attorney. He did not read what they had written about him, for he did not care,

then, to know. Instead, he breathed a little heavily and stared at the half-tone. It was there inevitably, as ineffaceable as sin. The bell rang, and he went to the door.

"It's you, Boyd, is it?" he said, coldly, his figure stiffening, and, without an invitation to enter, he left the door ajar and returned to his desk, with the newspaper spread open upon it.

The visitor entered, and, selecting a chair, seated himself upon the edge of it. He was a small, slight man, almost bald, and he wore glasses that sat firmly on his thin nose.

"I see that you are to be congratulated," he said, and indicated the newspaper with the tip of his cane. "You have accepted, of course, or the announcement would not have been made."

"I accepted yesterday," said Heywood,

quietly, without lifting his eyes, "by telegraph."

"It is an honor," continued his visitor, blandly, "and may, of course, lead to higher things if you fill the place satisfactorily as I have no doubt you will." He spoke the last words with just a trace of ironic politeness.

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Heywood took his watch from his pocket and held it open in his hand. He did not look at Boyd, but sat motionless, his gaze fixed upon the inkstand. His visitor could read nothing from his impassive countenance. I am glad the President-doubtless upon the advice of the Senator-should select a man who stands so well in the city both for ability and uprightness of character." He dropped the words slowly, as though tasting their flavor with enjoyment.

Heywood arose and snapped his watch

shut.

"I have to catch the five-eleven," he said, and his tone was openly contemptuous.

His visitor flushed and gripped his cane.

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I shall not detain you longer," he said. "Good-day."

Heywood's glance followed him through the doorway.

"The rat!" he whispered softly; "the damned rat !"

He folded the paper, closed his desk, and, taking his hat from a peg, walked calmly to the elevator. He was a big man, and he walked like a strong man, though awkwardly.

In the smoking-car of the suburban train the whist devotees greeted him with a shout. "Bully for you, Jim !" they called, and slapped him on the back. He smiled shyly at their cordiality.

"Thanks, boys," he said, and, dropping into his accustomed seat, took a deck of cards and shuffled them dextrously. "Thank God, a whist-player talks little !" he caught himself thinking, and then, controlling himself, pushed back the thoughts that crowded upon him and played his usual solid game.

The conductor who came for the tickets smiled at him through the haze of cigar smoke. "Glad to hear of your appointment, Mr. Heywood," said he. And between the deals his friends looked upon him in a kindly fashion and asked him an occasional question. But they said little. Among themselves they would say more, he knew, and to their wives, who would congratulate his wife more eloquently. The thirty-five-minute ride had never seemed long to him before.

At the suburban station the carriages and

"It isn't that, Helen," he answered with an effort. "I want the position. But I must tell you something I had hoped never to tell. You will perhaps think less of me because of it. And it is not that alone." "Tell me," she said; and her tone was confident. "I am not afraid."

"It is what I should have expected of you," said she.

me.

He went on quietly, half meditatively: "It is curious, but, as I think of it now, that one false step was a very good thing for It prevented others, and, I suppose, I developed a conscience because of it. Sometimes it seems to me it was almost providential. My eyes were opened, and ever since I have been careful to enter upon business only when it was honest and aboveboard. If that were all it led to, I should not be altogether sorry because of it; or, if sorry, grateful, too.

Helen," he turned to her, and his voice was earnest, "if I had not thought that act was past and done never to be repeated, I should never have married you, much as I should have cared. You will believe me in that? I had no thought that what I had done could ever touch you or be brought to injure me. It was seemingly buried, as so many worse things are buried, forever. But some years ago, long after we had been married and the children had come to us, I found that a man who is my enemy had chanced upon that sin of mine and was prepared to use his knowledge to hurt me. And then I knew what it is to suffer for a sin, to suffer in the fear of publicity, not for one's self so much as for others. The threat of that has been held over me, and the fear of it has always been with me to destroy my sense of security and our happiness."

Why didn't you tell me?" she cried. "Don't you trust me enough? Did you think I would blame you or think less of you? It was my right to share it with you."

"It was not right for me to let you share it," he answered, gravely. "It was mine to bear alone, a just punishment. I don't rebel against that-the pain of it. But it was more than that. It made me afraid. It did not become easier to bear with time, but harder, and then I knew that I was becoming a coward, losing my true self, and that the only course open to me was to force publicity and to face the consequences. That is why I accepted this appointment. I did not dare refuse even for your sake and the children's. Do you see why? It isn't ambition; it's to save my self-respect."

His voice revealed to her the weary struggle that had been waged within him. She caught his hand in both of hers with a little cry, and then, leaning towards him with a

fierce movement, pressed his head against her breast.

"You should have told me," she said. "It wasn't right for you to bear it alone."

"You forgive me, Helen?" he asked. "Don't I know what you are?" she cried. "Oh, it isn't fair that you should suffer for what is over and done with. Who could do such a thing? Who is it that threatens you? Why does he do it?"

"I don't know why,' ," he answered, 66 except that he hates me and I him- I shouldn't say that. I dislike him for his hatred of me. His name is Boyd, a lawyer."

Boyd?" she said, in a low voice; "Henry Boyd? Not Henry Boyd? Not that man ?"

"Do you know who he is?" he asked, in surprise. "I didn't know I had ever spoken

of him."

Her silence chilled him.

"What is it, Helen ?" he demanded.

For answer she snatched away her hand and pressed it to her eyes.

"I can't believe that; no, not that!" she cried.

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Why" he began, bewildered.

"I should have told you," she wailed, "but I put it off. Forgive me, forgive

me !"

She knelt beside him and seized his hands. Puzzled, he looked down at her face, pale in the gloom.

"What is it, dear?" he asked, softly. "I knew him once," she said, with an effort, as though the words were forced from her. "I-I was engaged to him. It was before I knew you. I meant always to tell you, but I was ashamed, and afterwards it seemed so far away and unimportant that it didn't matter."

His silence frightened her.

"I didn't care for him. I knew that after a time-when I met you-and I broke the engagement."

His hands were hot with her tears.

"Helen," he said, in a queer voice," aren't you an absurd girl? Did you think I would mind-be jealous of him?"

"No; not that," she laughed hysterically, from relief. "But I was ashamed of myself. I don't know how I ever could have done it."

He lifted her to his knee and pressed her head to his shoulder.

"So that's your secret?" he laughed. His tone became serious. "The poor, pitiful

little devil!" he said, softly. "So that's why "So that's why he hated me? No wonder."

"But it's my fault," she gasped, "that he has hounded you. It must be for that he wants to injure you. I am to blame."

He laughed happily.

"You are quite absurd, Helen," he said. "That doesn't explain it. How can it be your fault?" he added, gravely. "It is mine."

"He would not follow you but for that," she protested. "I know him. He is cruel and hard, and he never forgives. Tell me you forgive me, James. You do, don't you?" she pleaded.

"There is nothing to forgive," he answered, simply. "We aren't boy and girl, Helen, to be jealous of things past and done, you and We have been too close. What can such a thing matter ?”

I.

She turned her head to look up at him.

"You are generous," she said. "A woman would not forgive so easily. But I am the cause of your misfortune. I know it. You can't deny that."

"You are an illogical little person," he said, tenderly. "Don't think of it again. Boyd may only have wished to revenge himself at first, but he has developed a healthy dislike of me for my own sake. It isn't merely revenge. Isn't it pitiful to waste a lifetime in such a petty thing as that? I can feel sorry for him."

"I cannot," she cried. "He is a miserable, contemptible coward !"

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There, there." He kissed her. "I think I shall go early to bed, for I have something important to do in the morning, and I wish to be fresh."

He lay awake a long time, listening to the rustle of the window curtain and watching the ray of moonlight slowly shorten on the floor. He thought of his wife's desire to take the burden of his fault upon her shoulders.

It was illogical, but it was characteristic and touching. He knew that for her his sin was forgotten-effaced by that confession of youthful mistake, so difficult in retrospect to justify or explain. What could she have ever seen in Boyd to excite even a momentary infatuation? he wondered. It seemed quite as inexplicable as the sudden impulses that lead men to acts of violence-one of the mysteries of a universe not always rational. Her fear of his jealousy caused him to smile again tenderly. Life had given them too much for jealousy ever to be a possibility.

And for this happiness it was not too much to pay the cost of the suffering that must come. This too would be forgotten in time, like the keen pain of childhood.

He drifted lightly into sleep, light of heart.

In the morning he awoke with the not unpleasant sense of impending duty, of a task devoid of difficulty, a matter only of the will, and free of mental speculation. He dismissed the thought of it. At breakfast he noted with pleasurable keenness the solicitude in his wife's eyes. The mutual confession of the evening previous had somehow brightened the luster of a life dulled somewhat by domestic happiness and familiar content. His wife had not looked so at him for years, since the first days of their married life. Now they seemed again not as a married couple accepting each other as inevitable, but as lovers alert each to the other's presence and sensitive to an unspoken interchange of emotion. When he kissed her at parting, it was not as usual, merely an agreeable commonplace, but an amorous adventure. He noticed that she blushed-the more because he was aware of it.

Yet that morning, serene of heart, he could not bring himself to his accustomed hand at whist. He evaded his friends and climbed surreptitiously to the rear coach, peopled by unfamiliar faces from a suburb more remote. There he could be alone to think. He wished to face the immediate future; so to imagine what would happen that it would be without the sting of surprise. His fancy pictured the meeting with his friends when he should face them for the first time after the inevitable charge was made public; the constraint of some, the coldness of those upon whom he counted most for kindness and understanding, and the yet more unendurable cordiality of thick-skinned acquaintances who would seize upon the occasion to improve their friendship with him, saying to the world, "This is my good friend to whom I am loyal despite his peccadilloes." despite his peccadilloes." A pang of regret keener than any he had yet felt pierced him as he thought, "I am the cause of this." He knew the world sufficiently well to foresee the coldness of friendship in misfortune or disgrace. He did not wish his friends so tried and found wanting. That they should prove, as some of them must, only fairweather friends, struck him as not their weakness but his misdoing, the penalty for his sin. The consequences upon others of a crime,