WARDEN.  In the DARK, then, tell it!

[He presses the button and all the lights go out.  The stage is in complete darkness; only the voices are heard from the different places in which the actors are last seen.

BLANCHE. [Quickly.] Remember, to help you to help ourselves, we must know everything.  Go on.

STERLING.  It began fourteen months ago, after Ned Warden put me on my feet; I got a little ahead—­why not get way ahead?  There were plenty of men around me making their fortunes!  I wanted to equal them—­climb as high as they; it seemed easy enough for them, and luck had begun to come my way.  We’re all climbers of some sort in this world.  I was a climber after wealth and everything it brings—­

[He stops a moment.

BLANCHE. [Her voice comes throbbing with pathetic emotion through the darkness.] And I after happiness and all it brings.

STERLING. [Deeply moved, his voice trembles for a moment, but only for a moment.] Don’t, Blanche, or I can’t finish.  Well, I borrowed on some of Aunt Ruth’s bonds and speculated—­I made a hundred thousand in a week!  I put back the bonds.  But it had been so easy!  I could see those bonds grinning at me through the iron side of the vault box.  They seemed to smile and beckon, to beg me to take them out into the air again!  They grew to be like living things to me, servants of mine to get me gold—­and finally I determined to make one bigger coup than ever!  I took Aunt Ruth’s bonds out and all the money available in my trust, and put it all into this new company!  It seemed so safe.  I stood to be a prince among the richest!  And, for a day or so, I’ve known nothing short of a miracle could save me from being wanted by the police!  To-night I gave up even the miracle.  That’s all.  It’s no use saying I’m sorry.

[A moment’s pause.

MASON.  Have others suffered besides Miss Hunter?

STERLING.  There is some money of Aunt Ruth’s left—­stock I couldn’t transfer.  But I used the money of others—­Miss Godesby and Ryder’s.

MASON.  Miss Ruth, a large part of your fortune is gone, used unlawfully by this man.  Will you resort to the law?

RUTH. [Very quietly.] No!

BLANCHE. [In a voice broken with emotion and gratitude.] Aunt Ruth!

MASON.  We can’t hope Miss Godesby and Ryder will be as lenient!  You must go to them in the morning—­tell them everything, put yourself at their mercy, ask for time and their silence.

STERLING. Never! I couldn’t do it.

MASON.  It is the only honorable way out of your dishonorable action—­the least you can do!

STERLING.  Confess to their faces, and probably to no good?  Eat the dust at their feet, and most likely be clapped into prison for it? No, thank you!

BLANCHE.  Suppose I went to them?