e with a
friend in Brooklyn.

Larry sat long out in the night after his grandmother had left him. What
should he do with this amazing information placed at his disposal? Tell
Joe Ellison? Or tell Maggie? Or tell both? Or himself try to meet Jimmie
Carlisle and pay that traitor to Joe Ellison and that malformer of
Maggie the coin he had earned?

But for hours the situation itself was still too bewildering in its
many phases for Larry to give concentrated thought to what should be
its attempted solution. Not until dawn was beginning to awaken dully, as
with a protracted yawn, out of the shadowy Sound, was he able really to
hold his mind with clearness upon the problem of what use he should
make of these facts of which he had been appointed guardian. He decided
against telling Joe Ellison--at least he would not tell him yet. He
recalled the rumors of Joe Ellison's repressed volcano of a temper; if
Joe Ellison should learn how he had been defrauded, all the man's vital
forces would be instantly transformed into destructive, vengeful rage
that would spare no one and count no cost. The result would doubtless
be tragedy, with no one greatly served, and with Joe very likely back in
prison. If he himself should go out to give Old Jimmie his deserts,
his action would be just good powder wasted--it likewise would serve no
constructive purpose. Larry realized that it is only human nature for a
wronged man to wish for and attempt revenge; but that in the economy of
life revenge has no value, serves no purpose; that it usually only makes
a bad situation worse.

A tremendous wrong had been done here, a wrong which showed a malignant,
cunning, patient mind. But as Larry finally saw the matter, the point
for first consideration was not the valueless satisfaction of making the
guilty man suffer, but was to try to restore to the victims some part of
those precious things of which they had been unconsciously robbed.

And then Larry had what seemed to him an inspiration: his inspiration
being only a sane thought, and what the Duchess, though she had
not pointed the way to him, had thought he would do. Maggie was
the important person in this situation!--Maggie whose life was just
beginning, and whose nature he still believed to be plastic! Not Joe
Ellison or Old Jimmie Carlisle, who had almost lived out their lives and
whose natures were now settled into what they would be until the end.
By playing upon the finer elements in Maggie's cha