ngton Lawton was the victim! And I am as
innocent as he! I swear it!"

"You may as well conserve your strength and your strategic ingenuity
for the immediate future, Mr. Mallowe. You'll need both," Blaine
returned, coolly. "If you've come here to make any appeal--"

"I've come to assert my innocence!" the broken man cried with a flash
of his old proud dignity. "I only learned this evening of the truth,
and that those scoundrels Carlis and Rockamore had implicated me! How
a man of your discernment and experience could believe for a moment
that I was a party to any fraudulent--"

Blaine pressed the bell.

"There is no use in prolonging this interview, Mr. Mallowe!" he said,
curtly. "All the evidence is in my hands."

"But allow me to explain!" The flabby face grew more deathlike, until
the burning eyes seemed peering from the face of a corpse.

Two men entered, and at sight of them, the former pompous president of
the Street Railways of Illington plumped to his fat, quaking knees.

"For God's sake, listen! You must listen, Blaine!" he shrieked. "I am
one of the prominent men of this country! I have three married
daughters, two of them with small children! The disgrace, the infamy
of this, will kill them! I will make restitution; I will--"

"Pennington Lawton had one daughter, unmarried, unprovided for! Did
you think of _her_?" asked Blaine, grimly. "I'm sorry for the innocent
who must suffer with you, Mr. Mallowe, but in this instance the law
must take its course. Lead him away."

When the wailing, quavering voice had subsided behind the closing
door, Henry Blaine turned to young Morrow with a weary look of pain,
age-old, in his eyes.

"Unpleasant, wasn't it?" he asked grimly. "I try to school myself
against it, but with all my experience, a scene like this makes me
sick at heart. I know the wretch deserves what is coming to him, just
as Rockamore knew when he unfalteringly sped that bullet--just as
Carlis knew when he heard his own voice repeated by the dictagraph.
And yet I, who make my living, and shall continue to make it, by
unearthing malefactors; I, who have built my career, made my
reputation, proved myself to be what I am by the detection and
punishment of wrong-doing--I wish with all my heart and soul, before
God, that there was no such thing as crime in all this fair green
world!"

CHAPTER XXI

CLEARED SKIES

Just as in autumn, the period of Indian summer brings a reminiscent
warmth an