ys low for
its temptations, too."

There had been nothing in the world Carlton would not have given to
make happy the woman who stood now, leaning on the table in cold
silence, with averted head, regarding neither him nor the pile of
greenbacks.

"Hundreds of thousands of dollars passed through my hands every week,"
he resumed. "That business owed me for my care of it. It was taking the
best in me and in return was not paying what other businesses paid for
the best in other men. When a man gets thinking that way, with a woman
whom he loves as I love you--something happens."

He paused in the bitterness of his thoughts. She moved as if to speak.
"No, no," he interrupted. "Hear me out first. All I asked was a chance
to employ a little of the money that I saw about me--not to take it,
but to employ it for a little while, a few days, perhaps only a few
hours. Money breeds money. Why should I not use some of this idle money
to pay me what I ought to have?

"When Mr. Green was away last summer I heard some inside news about a
certain stock. So it happened that I began to juggle the accounts. It
is too long a story to tell how I did it. Anybody in my position could
have done it--for a time. It would not interest you anyhow. But I did
it. The first venture was successful. Also the spending of the money
was very successful, in its way. That was the money that took us to the
fashionable hotel in Atlantic City where we met so many people. Instead
of helping me, it got me in deeper.

"When the profit from this first deal was spent there was nothing to do
but to repeat what I had done successfully before. I could not quit
now. I tried again, a little hypothecation of some bonds. Stocks went
down. I had made a bad bet and five thousand dollars was wiped out, a
whole year's salary. I tried again, and wiped out five thousand more. I
was at my wits' end. I have borrowed under fictitious names, used names
of obscure persons as borrowers, have put up dummy security. It was
possible because I controlled the audits. But it has done no good. The
losses have far outbalanced the winnings and to-day I am in for
twenty-five thousand dollars."

She was watching him now with dilating eyes as the horror of the
situation was burned into her soul. He raced on, afraid to pause lest
she should interrupt him.

"Mr. Green has been talked into introducing scientific management and a
new system into the business by a certified public accountant, a