eed to steal--you must know
that--oh, that I wouldn't--that--I couldn't--If you will just let me
pay you--"

Here now, Mag Monahan, don't you get to sneering. She was
straight--right on the level, all right. You couldn't listen to that
cracked little voice of hers a minute without being sure of it.

I was just about to permit her graciously to pay me the money,--for my
friend? the dear Bishop's sake, of course,--when a big floor-walker
happened to catch sight of us.

"If you'll come with me, Mrs. Van Wagenen, to a dressing-room, I'll
arrange your collar for you," I said very loud. And then, in a
whisper: "Of course, I understand, but the thing may look different to
other people. And that big floor-walker there gets a commission from
the newspapers every time he tells them--"

She gave a squawk for all the world like a dried-up little hen
scuttling out of a yellow dog's way, and we took the elevator to the
second floor.

The minute I closed the door of the little fitting-room she held out
the lace to me.

"I have changed my mind," she said, "and shall give you the lace back.
I will not keep it. I can not--I can not bear the sight of it. It
terrifies me and shocks me. I can take no pleasure in it.
Besides--besides, it will be discipline for me to do without it now
that I have found it after all these years. Every day I shall look at
the place in my collection which it would have occupied, and I shall
say to myself: 'Maria Van Wagenen, take warning. See to what terrible
straits a worldly passion may bring one; what unconscious greed may
do!' I shall give the money to Mills for charity and I will
never--never fill that place in my collection."

"What good will that do?" I asked, puzzled, while I folded the collar
up into a very small package.

"You mean that I ought to submit to the exposure--that I deserve the
lesson and the punishment--not for stealing, but for being absorbed in
worldly things. Perhaps you are right. It certainly shows that you
have at some time been under Mills' spiritual care, my dear. I wonder
if he would insist--whether I ought--yes, I suppose he would. Oh!"

A saleswoman's head was thrust in the door. "Excuse me," she said, "I
thought the room was empty."

"We've just finished trying on," I said sweetly.

"Don't go!" The Bishop's wife turned to her, her little fluttering
hands held out appealingly. "And do not misunderstand me. The thing
may seem wrong in your eyes, as