“I understand,” she said, “you are the guilty one.  Your daughter is quite innocent of this.  It may be chance, alone, that keeps her so.  With such a father—­but I will be merciful and will not show you what a vile inheritance of wickedness you have prepared for the poor child.  Your conscience will do that, if you have any conscience.  While you are in prison you will have that to reflect upon.”

He was dismayed.  The ring had been returned.  Would she still—­“I—­I must go to prison?”

“Why, certainly.  Don’t you see how necessary that is?  What would happen to society if thieves were left unpunished?”

“Thief!” The word fell on his ears with tragic force.  A thief in prison!  Was this to be the end of all his striving?  Were the high hopes and ambitions of his splendid youth to end, at length, behind the bars of a thief’s cell?  Ah, those happy, bygone days, when with unbounded hope and confidence he had promised all things to the lovely creature he had wooed and won and wed in that toy village far away in the Black Forest!  What was their fruition!  Unhappiness, disgrace and exile for her loveliness, and finally a child for whom she paid the supreme price of death.  His promises, breathed at her bedside of unwavering care, unfaltering devotion, unfailing happiness for the wee baby in the years to come—­how had he kept them?  Poverty, distress, privation.  With such commodities had he redeemed those promises, and, finally, had driven the girl, naturally as sweet-souled as an angel, as pure as the new-fallen snow, to vulgar crime to satisfy, no doubt, those girlish and quite natural desires which it should have been his duty and his pleasure to provide for.  Oh, he had done well with life!  The soul within him writhed in agony as he reflected on the use which he had made of it.  His heart went sick from shame.  And—­what would Anna do without him?

“Ah, yes, Madame; I see,” said he.  “I see.  Society must be protected from such folk as I. Yes; that is very clear indeed.  We menace it.  The place for us is where stone walls surround us—­to protect society; locks hold us—­to protect society; death comes quickly to us—­to protect society.  I see all that, Madame.  I will go to prison as a punishment, of course.  But you will let me see my Anna for a moment—­you will let me say goodbye to Anna?  She is here, in the next room.  I had hoped, you see, that I could make you think that prison was not necessary; I had hoped that I could fool you into thinking that I was not, very much, a danger to society.  But you have found me out.  You realize how terrible I am.  When I thought that I could fool you I had her go to the next room, so that, perhaps, she might know nothing of it.  Now, of course, she will know all, but—­you will let me say goodbye to her?  You will wait for me, out here?”

Mrs. Vanderlyn was not too willing, but, as she thought of it, it seemed quite safe, and she could tell her friends, she rapidly reflected, that she had been swayed by irresistible impulse of mercy.  That would sound well, told dramatically.