us this morning. Hoddy, what
made you do it? Whatever made you do it?"

"God knows! Something said to me: _Take it! Take it!_ And ... I
took it. After I took the bills it was too late to turn back. I
drew out what I had saved and boarded the first ship out. Wait!"

He released himself from his aunt's embrace, ran to the trunk and
fetched the old coat. With the aid of a penknife he ripped the
shoulder seams and drew out the ten one-thousand dollar bills.
Gravely he placed them in his aunt's hand.

"You didn't spend it?"

"I never intended to spend it--any more than I really intended to
steal it. That's the sort of fool your nephew is!"

"Not even a good time!" said the aunt, whimsically, as she stuffed
the bills into her reticule. "Not a single whooper-upter! Nothing
but torment and remorse ... and Ruth! Children, put your arms
around me. In a little while--to-morrow--all these tender,
beautiful emotions will pass away, and I'll become what I was
yesterday, a cynical, miserly old spinster. I'll be wanting my
sixteen thousand."

"Six," he corrected.

"Why, so it is," she said, in mock astonishment. "Think of me
forgetting ten thousand so quickly!"

"Go to, you old fraud! You'll never fool me again. God bless you,
Auntie! I'll go into the mills and make pulp with my bare hands, if
you want me to. Home!--which I never hoped to see again. To dream
and to labour: to you, my labour; to Ruth, my dreams. And if
sometimes I grow heady--and it's in the blood--remind me of this
day when you took me out of hell--a thief."

"Hoddy!" said Ruth. "You mustn't!"

"Nothing can change that, Dawn Pearl. Auntie has taken the nails
out of my palms, but the scars will always be there."

There fell upon the three the silence of perfect understanding; and
in this silence each saw a vision. To Ruth came that of the great
world, her lawful lover at her side; and there would be glorious
books into each of which he would unconsciously put a little of her
soul along with his own, needing her always. The spinster saw
herself growing warm again in the morning sunshine of youth--a
flaring ember before the hearth grew cold. Spurlock's vision was
oddly of the past. He saw Enschede, making the empty sea, alone,
alone, forever alone.

"Children," said the aunt, first to awake, "be young fools as long
as God will permit you. And don't worry about the six thousand,
Hoddy. I'll call it my wedding gift. There's nothing so sad in this
world as