in the fact that there has been no suspicion aroused; but snooping around a bank vault at midnight with a mask on and a bull’s-eye lantern fades to a whisper as a suspicion-arouser compared with anybody willingly coughing up a bunch of money once they’ve got their claws on it—­and a yellow journal, let alone an army corps of them, on the scent of a possible sensation has all the detective bureaus in the country pinned to the ropes—­they’d have us uncovered quicker than I like to think about it—­and that means—­”

He stopped, and with a hurried motion, carried his hands across his eyes—­Helena, pure as one of God’s own angels now, to come to that, to come to—­

It was the Flopper who completed the sentence.

“Ten spaces up de river,” said the Flopper, and shivered, and his tongue sought his lips; “or mabbe—­mabbe twenty.”

Pale Face Harry stirred uneasily.

“There’s the other way,” he said without looking up, his eyes on his finger nail that traced the grain of the wood again.  “Get the money and the sparklers all done up and addressed to the ones they came from, send ’em off in a bunch to Thornton—­and we fly the coop before he gets them, disappear, fade away—­and take our chances of getting caught.”

“An’ den it’s all off wid me an’ Mamie”—­the Flopper’s face grew hard.  “Nix on dat!  Dat don’t go!”

“We cannot do that, Harry,” said Helena, in a tired voice.  “There is—­the Patriarch.”

“Yes,” said Madison, beginning his stride up and down the room again.  “After all, whether we could give back the money without being caught, or whether we couldn’t, is not the vital thing; there is—­the Patriarch.”

Helena’s eyes were on the silent figure in the shadows by the fireplace.

“If—­if it were not for him,” she said, “I think that perhaps—­perhaps I might be brave enough to confess it all, and—­and not try to escape from the punishment that I deserve.  But he would know—­he cannot see, nor hear, nor speak, but he would know—­as he seems so strangely, so wonderfully, so supernaturally to know and understand everything.  And, oh, he means so much to me, to us all, for it is he, more than any one else, who has saved us from—­from what we were.  And he loves us.  It would shatter his faith, ruin all that his life has meant to him, and—­and we cannot bring him grief and sorrow like that.  Oh, what can we do!  What can we do!  We cannot stop—­and we cannot go on!  We cannot stay here even if we returned the money successfully, and we cannot stay here if we kept it as it is; for things would still have to go on as they are, even if we didn’t mean to steal any more, no matter what we might say or do, for it’s beyond our control now, and to stay means that we should still have to live and lead our double lives, still have to practise hypocrisy and deceit, and—­and I cannot—­we cannot do that any more.  And the only way to get away from it all is to run away—­and we can’t