“Well, the boy must be punished!” said Mr, Forbes decidedly.  “I cannot be accountable for what may follow.”

“Do you mean that you will arrest my brother?” cried Mr. Watkins, “when you know that by doing so you will blast his character forever and drive a poor woman to her grave who has never wronged you?”

“The boy should have thought of that,” answered Mr. Forbes, grimly.  “I deal with my employees, not with their futures or their mothers.”

“But if I return the money!  See, I have a part of it here!”

Mr. Watkins almost cried with agony as he held out two hundred dollars.

Mr. Forbes took the money and counted it carefully.

“Let’s see, Watkins, your salary is twelve dollars a week,” he said slowly.  “If I deduct five dollars a week to cover the balance of this, it will be just sixty weeks before I could get my money.”

“If I could only find the rest,” said Mr. Watkins, groaning; “but Sam says he lost it, and I think he tells the truth.  If he hadn’t lost it he would have given it all to mother.”

Mr. Forbes was drumming lightly on a table by his side.  It was evident that two emotions were struggling within him.

“Here is the evening paper, sir,” said a maid at the door.

Mr. Watkins moved automatically and handed it to his employer.

“Hey!  What is this!  A death at our store yesterday, Watkins?”

Mr. Forbes had caught sight of a headline half across the paper.

Mr. Watkins bowed; he could not speak.  His employer opened the paper and scanned it hastily.

“Ah!  That’s right!  That’s right!  Gibson is a clever man!  He makes the thing sound right before the public!  Denton, Day & Co. will pay for Miss Jennings’ funeral, yet they say there is no heart, soul nor conscience in a big corporation!”

He almost laughed as he ran his eye down the columns of the paper, and for a moment his manner became almost confidential.

“That’s one of the tricks of our trade, Watkins,” he said with a chuckle.  “We cater to the weaknesses and foibles of the public, and there’s nothing that appeals to them like a report of generosity.  Of course, they never stop to think that the poor creatures are much better off dead than alive, and that they really have no hold on the sympathies of others.  It’s a fad among rich people to weep over the poor!  Some of them will probably send flowers to the funeral of that woman, and think themselves angels of light for doing it!  I tell you, religion is a trade mark in all lines of business, and I’ve decided in the last few days that that’s about all it’s good for!”

He laid the paper down with a smile of satisfaction, then turned toward Mr. Watkins to resume the former conversation.

But a look at the young man’s face checked the words upon his lips.  The scorn in those hollow eyes burned even through his callous nature.

For a moment he saw himself much as his assistant saw him, a man whose greed of gold never reached its limit, even though lives were sacrificed in his service.