r father. You must have given Barnby an
entirely erroneous impression."

"It is about those checks I am going to speak. When you have heard me,
condemn me if you like, but don't ruin us utterly. That is all I ask.
Don't ruin us."

"Be more explicit. You are talking in riddles. Everybody seems to be
conspiring to hide something from me. What is it? What has happened? What
did Dick do before he went away? Did he do anything at all? Have you
hidden something from me?"

"John, the checks I got from father, with which we paid our debts to
stave off disgrace, were--forgeries."

"Lord help us, Mary! Do you mean that we have been handling stolen
money?"

"Don't put it like that, John, don't! I can't bear it."

"And is it true what they're saying about Dick? Oh! it's horrible. I'll
not believe it of our boy."

"There is no need to believe it, John. He is innocent, though they
condemn him. Yet, the checks were forgeries."

"Then, who? You got the checks, didn't you? I thought--Ah!"

"I am the culprit, John. I altered them."

"You?"

"Yes, John. Don't look at me like that. Father was outrageous. There was
no money to be got from him, and I had no other course. Your bankruptcy
would have meant your downfall. That dressmaker woman was inexorable. You
would have been sued by your stock-broker, and--who knows what
wretchedness was awaiting us?--perhaps absolute beggary in obscure
lodgings, and our daily bread purchased with money begged from our
friends. You know what father is: you know how he hates both you and me,
how he would rub salt into our wounds, and gloat over our humiliation.
If--if Dick hadn't gone to the front--"

"Mary, Mary, what are you saying! You have robbed your father of money
instead of facing the result of our follies bravely? You have sent our
boy to the war--with money filched by a felony! Don't touch me! Stand
away! No; I thought you were a good woman!"

"I didn't know. I didn't realize."

"You are not a child, without knowledge of the ways of the world. You
must have known what you were doing."

"I thought that father would never know," she faltered, chokingly. "He
hoards his money, and a few thousands more or less would make no
difference to him. There was every chance that he would never discover
the loss. It was as much mine as his. He has thousands that belonged to
my mother, which he cheated me out of. I added words and figures to the
checks, like the fool that I was, not using the sa