ial cases. Fifty or
sixty thousand pounds at the smallest calculation."

"More! To be precise, I have received exactly seventy-two thousand
pounds, Mr. Narkom. But, as I tell you, I have to-day but one hundred
pounds of that sum left. Lost in speculation? Oh, dear no! I've not
invested one farthing in any scheme, company, or purchase since the
night you gave me my chance and helped me to live an honest life."

"Then in the name of Heaven, Cleek, what has become of the money?"

"It has gone in the cause of my redemption, Mr. Narkom," he answered in
a hushed voice. "My good friend--for you really _have_ been a good
friend to me, the best I ever had in all the world--my good friend, let
us for only just this one minute speak of the times that lie behind. You
know what redeemed me--a woman's eyes, a woman's rose-white soul! I
said, did I not, that I wanted to win her, wanted to be worthy of her,
wanted to climb up and stand with her in the light? You remember that,
do you not, Mr. Narkom?"

"Yes, I remember. But, my dear fellow, why speak of your 'vanishing
cracksman' days when you have so utterly put them behind you, and since
lived a life beyond reproach? Whatever you did in those times you have
amply atoned for. And what can that have to do with your impoverished
state?"

"It has everything to do with it. I said I would be worthy of that one
dear woman, and--I can never be, Mr. Narkom, until I have made
restitution; until I can offer her a clean hand as well as a clean life.
I can't restore the actual things that the 'vanishing cracksman' stole;
for they are gone beyond recall, but--I can, at least, restore the value
of them, and--that I have been secretly doing for a long time."

"Man alive! God bless my soul! Cleek, my dear fellow, do you mean to
tell me that all the rewards, all the money you have earned--"

"Has gone to the people from whom I stole things in the wretched old
days that lie behind me," he finished very gently. "It goes back, in
secret gifts, as fast as it is earned, Mr. Narkom. Don't you see the
answers, the acknowledgments, in the 'Personal' columns of the papers
now and again? Wheresoever I robbed in those old days, I am repaying in
these. When the score is wiped off, when the last robbery is paid for,
my hand will be clean, and--I can offer it; never before."

"Cleek! My dear fellow! What a man! What a _man_! Oh, more than ever am
I certain _now_ that old Sir Horace Wyvern was right that nig