Go to work, sonny, in your shop, and turn out
another new tool for the advancement of trade!'"

He paused and smiled grimly.

"I've done it, too! I've just finished a little invention that'll crack
any safe in New York in twenty minutes after I touch it."

He broke into a dry laugh, sat down and deliberately lighted a fresh
cigarette.

She studied his face with beating heart. Was he lost beyond all hope
of reformation? Or was this the boyish bravado of an amateur criminal
poisoned by the consciousness of wrong? She tried to think. She felt the
red blood pounding through her heart and beating against her brain in
suffocating waves of despair.

In vivid flashes the scene of her marriage but two weeks ago, came back
in tormenting memories. The solemn words she had spoken kept ringing
like the throb of a funeral bell far up in the star-lit heavens----

"I, MARY ADAMS, TAKE THEE, JAMES ANTHONY, TO MY WEDDED HUSBAND, TO HAVE
AND TO HOLD... FOR BETTER FOR WORSE, FOR RICHER FOR POORER, IN SICKNESS
AND IN HEALTH, TO LOVE, CHERISH, AND TO OBEY, TILL DEATH DO US PART,
ACCORDING TO GOD'S HOLY ORDINANCE; AND THERETO I GIVE THEE MY TROTH."

The last solemn prayer kept ringing its deep-toned message over all----

"GOD THE FATHER, GOD THE SON, GOD THE HOLY GHOST, BLESS, PRESERVE, AND
KEEP YOU; THE LORD MERCIFULLY WITH HIS FAVOR LOOK UPON YOU, AND FILL YOU
WITH ALL SPIRITUAL BENEDICTION AND GRACE; THAT YE MAY SO LIVE TOGETHER
IN THIS LIFE, THAT IN THE WORLD TO COME YE MAY HAVE LIFE EVERLASTING.
AMEN."

In a sudden rush of desperate pity for herself and the man to whom she
was bound, she dropped on her knees by his side, slipped her arms about
his neck and clung to him, sobbing.

"Oh, Jim, Jim, man," she whispered hoarsely. "I can't see you sink into
hell like this! Have you no real love in your heart for the woman who
has given all? Have mercy on me! Have mercy! You can't mean the hideous
things you've just said! You've been crazed by your losses. You're just
a boy yet. Life is all before you. You're only twenty-four. I'm just
twenty-four. We can both begin anew. I've never lived until these
past weeks--neither have you. You couldn't drag me down into a life of
crime----"

Her head sank and her voice choked into silence. He made no movement of
his hand to soothe her. His voice was not persuasive. It was hard and
cold.

"I'm not asking you to help me on any of my jobs," he said. "I'm the
financier of the family. Yo