g to those despicable thieves, Craig least of all."

"Craig. I met him over there. Pummeled him."

"I didn't act like a man. Some day a comfortable fortune would fall to
the lot of each of us. But I took eight thousand, lost it, and came
whining to you. You don't belong to this petty age, Paul. You ought
to have been a fellow of the Round Table." Arthur smiled wanly. "To
throw your life away like that, for a brother who wasn't fit to lace
your shoes! If you had written you would have learned that everything
was smoothed over. The Andes people dropped the matter entirely. You
loved the mother far better than I."

"And she must never know," quietly.

"Do you mean that?"

"I always mean everything I say, Arty. Can't you see the uselessness
of telling her now? She has gone all these years with the belief that
I am a thief. A thief, Arty, I, who never stole anything save a
farmer's apples. They would have called you a defaulter; that's
because you had access to the safe, whereas I had none." Arthur
winced. "I don't propose to disillusion the mother. I am strong
enough to go away without seeing her; and God knows how my heart
yearns, and my ears and eyes and arms."

Warrington reached mechanically for the portrait in the silver frame,
but Arthur stayed his hand.

"No, Paul; that is mine."

Warrington dropped his hand, puzzled. "I was not going to destroy it,"
ironically.

"No; but in a sense you have destroyed me. Compensation. What
trifling thought most of us give that word! The law of compensation.
For ten years Elsa has been the flower o' the corn for me. She almost
loved me. And one day she sees you; and in that one day all that I had
gained was lost, and all that you had lost was gained. The law of
compensation. Sometimes we escape retribution, but never the law of
compensation. Some months ago she wrote me a letter. She was always
direct. It was a just letter."

A pause. Arthur gazed steadily at the portrait, while Warrington
twisted his yellow beard.

"The ways of mothers are mysterious," said the latter, finally. He
wondered if Arthur would confess to the blacker deed, or have it forced
from him. He would wait and see. "The father and the mother weren't
happy. Money. There's the wedge. It's in every life somewhere. A
marriage of convenience is an unwise thing. When we were born the
mother turned to us. Up to the time we were six or seven there was no
distinction in