l went to bed. He awoke at two o'clock in the
afternoon, very thirsty and dizzy, and rang for ice-water, coffee, and
the Pittsburgh papers.

On the part of the hotel management, Paul excited no suspicion. There was
this to be said for him, that he wore his spoils with dignity and in
no way made himself conspicuous. His chief greediness lay in his ears and
eyes, and his excesses were not offensive ones. His dearest pleasures
were the grey winter twilights in his sitting-room; his quiet enjoyment
of his flowers, his clothes, his wide divan, his cigarette and his sense
of power. He could not remember a time when he had felt so at peace with
himself. The mere release from the necessity of petty lying, lying every
day and every day, restored his self-respect. He had never lied for
pleasure, even at school; but to make himself noticed and admired, to
assert his difference from other Cordelia Street boys; and he felt a good
deal more manly, more honest, even, now that he had no need for boastful
pretensions, now that he could, as his actor friends used to say, "dress
the part." It was characteristic that remorse did not occur to him. His
golden days went by without a shadow, and he made each as perfect as he
could.

On the eighth day after his arrival in New York, he found the whole
affair exploited in the Pittsburgh papers, exploited with a wealth of
detail which indicated that local news of a sensational nature was at a
low ebb. The firm of Denny & Carson announced that the boy's father
had refunded the full amount of his theft, and that they had no intention
of prosecuting. The Cumberland minister had been interviewed, and
expressed his hope of yet reclaiming the motherless lad, and Paul's
Sabbath-school teacher declared that she would spare no effort to that
end. The rumour had reached Pittsburgh that the boy had been seen in a
New York hotel, and his father had gone East to find him and bring
him home.

Paul had just come in to dress for dinner; he sank into a chair,
weak in the knees, and clasped his head in his hands. It was to be worse
than jail, even; the tepid waters of Cordelia Street were to close over
him finally and forever. The grey monotony stretched before him in
hopeless, unrelieved years; Sabbath-school, Young People's Meeting, the
yellow-papered room, the damp dish-towels; it all rushed back upon him
with sickening vividness. He had the old feeling that the orchestra had
suddenly stopped, the sinking sen