ed, turning pale and trembling slightly.

"He left it on his table near the door and just thought of looking for it.
I told him not to mention it for the present and I'd deliver the goods.
Marta has gone away with Jo; evidently she intends to skip. She'll not get
away with this. I am going after them in the car. I shall turn her over to
the authorities. You can pack her things and send them after her."

"Oh, wait!" she cried, as he started to go down stairs. "It wasn't Marta.
It was I."

"What!" he cried incredulously. "You!"

"Yes."

"When did you take it?"

"On my way to bed last night after I left you. His door was open--the ring
on a table near by--in easy reach. He shouldn't have left anything like
that around loose."

"I never dreamed of your taking it," he said bitterly. "I thought you had
reformed."

She laughed, a little reckless laugh that had a sound like silver bells.

"I don't like that ring either. It's gaudy."

He looked at her with a new thought and hope.

"Are you a kleptomaniac?"

"I should think not! I never take anything unless it is of some value or
use."

"Didn't it occur to you that you might be suspected and caught with the
goods?"

"No; I thought I knew Hebby and that he was too much of a good fellow to
report a loss at first blink. Sort of banal, you know. You don't know much
of human nature to suppose a thief could undergo such a sudden
reformation. There are no modern miracles like that. Marta is the only one
I knew who could change. But she isn't a born thief. I really was trying
to be good; but I suppose I will slip and fall countless times--like a
drunkard."

"This is the first time since you came here?"

"Absolutely; but to be honest, thieves don't always lie--I've not been so
strongly tempted before."

"And you could do it then--right after--"

"After you had done me the great and regretted honor? Well, I didn't yield
all at once. I walked right past it with the 'Get thee behind me' pose and
closed my door and went to the window and--looked up at the hills and
then--something stronger than all my resolutions carried me back to look
at it once more. It was all off."

Anger and something else battled in his face.

"Why," she asked curiously, "did you suspect Marta instead of me?"

"I don't know," he said spiritlessly.

"You see Marta has an incentive to keep her straight--an incentive that I
lack."

He winced.

"Have you," she asked cynically, "always been