efore they loved, it was as
nothing to what it was now that they had tasted together the bitter and
the sweet of their mutual crime.

Carlton went down to the office the next day, just as before. The
anxious hours that his wife had previously spent thinking whether he
might betray himself by some slip were comparative safety as contrasted
with the uncertainty of the hours now. But the first day after the
alarm of the discovery passed off all right. Carlton even discussed the
case, his case, with those in the office, commented on it, condemned
the swindlers, and carried it off, he felt proud to say, as well as
Constance herself might have done had she been in his place.

Another day passed. His account of the first day, reassuring as it had
been to her, did not lessen the anxiety. Yet never before had they
seemed to be bound together by such ties as knitted their very souls in
this crisis. She tried with a devotion that was touching to impart to
him some of her own strength to ward off detection.

It was the afternoon of the second day that a man who gave the name of
Drummond called and presented a card of the Reynolds Company.

"Have you ever been paid a little bill of twenty-five dollars by our
company?" he asked.

Down in his heart Carlton knew that this man was a detective. "I can't
say without looking it up," he replied.

Carlton touched a button and an assistant appeared. Something outside
himself seemed to nerve him up, as he asked: "Look up our account with
Reynolds, and see if we have been paid--what is it?--a bill for
twenty-five dollars. Do you recall it?"

"Yes, I recall it," replied the assistant. "No, Mr. Dunlap, I don't
think it has been paid. It is a small matter, but we sent them a
duplicate bill yesterday. I thought the original must have gone astray."

Carlton cursed him inwardly for sending the bill. But then, he
reasoned, it was only a question of time, after all, when the forgery
would be discovered.

Drummond dropped into a half-confidential, half-quizzing tone. "I
thought not. Somewhere along the line that check has been stolen and
raised to twenty-five thousand dollars," he remarked.

"Is that so?" gasped Carlton, trying hard to show just the right amount
of surprise and not too much. "Is that so?"

"No doubt you have read in the papers of this clever realty company
swindle? Well, it seems to have been part of that."

"I am sure that we shall be glad to do all in our power to cooper