Bob walked slowly to his desk and sat down, his eyes fixed upon the safe as if it fascinated him....  Facts, facts!  His soul demanded facts.  Those at hand were few, simple.  First, the safe had been opened by some one who knew the combination.  Three persons existed who might have opened it—­or betrayed its combination:  Scattergood, himself, Sarah Pound....  Second, he knew he had not opened it nor betrayed the combination.  Third, he was equally certain Scattergood had not done so....  Fourth—­he groaned!...

Bob comprehended what had happened; why Farley Curtis had wooed so persistently Sarah Pound.  It was not out of love nor desire, but for a more sordid purpose ... it was to win her love, to blind her to honor, to make a tool of her, and through her to secure possession of that bit of paper which stood between him and riches.

Presently Sarah Pound entered.  Bob could not force himself to look at her; did not speak.  She gazed at him curiously, and when she saw the grayness of his face, the lines about his mouth, and eyes that advanced his age by twenty years, she felt a little catch at her heart, a breathlessness, a sudden alarm.

“Miss Pound,” he said, in a voice which he himself could not recognize as his own, “you needn’t take off your hat....  You—­you actually came back here!  You were bold enough to come again to this office....  I fancied you would be gone—­from Coldriver.”  His voice broke queerly.  “I suppose you realize what you have done—­and are satisfied with the price—­the price of forfeiting the respect of every honest man and woman you know!  That is a great deal to give up.  It ought to command a high price—­treachery....  I hope you are getting a sufficient return....  It means nothing to you, of course, but—­I loved you.  I thought about you as a man thinks about the woman he hopes will be his wife ... and his children’s mother ... so it—­pains—­to find you despicable....”

Sarah’s little fists clenched, her eyes glinted.

“How dare you?” she cried.  “What affair is it of yours what I do?...  You’re a silly, jealous idiot.”  With which childish invective she flung out of the office.

In an hour Bob Allen was calmer, and so the more unhappy.  His mind cleared, and, being cleared, it directed him to carry his trouble to Scattergood Baines.

“Um!...  Gone, eh?” said Scattergood.  “Sure it’s gone?...  Um!...”

“Yes, and Sarah Pound will be gone, too.  How dared she come back to my office?...  Now she’ll go with Curtis.”

“Shouldn’t be s’prised,” said Scattergood, waggling his head.  “I heard Farley a-pointin’ out to her the dee-sirability of Paris and Rome and sich European p’ints last night....  You calculate Sairy took the paper?”

“What else can I think?”

“To be sure....  Um!...  Paris, Rome, London—­might be argued into stealin’ it myself, if I was a gal.  Um!...  Ever see a toad ketch flies, Bob?  Does it with his tongue.  There’s toad men, Bob, that goes huntin’ wimmin the same way—­with their tongues.  Su’prisin’ the number and quality they ketch, too.  What was you plannin’ on doin’, Bob?  Goin’ back to your office, wasn’t you?  And keepin’ your mouth shet?  Was that the idee?  Eh?”