y knows where Mr. Northwick is."

"I suppose," said the doctor, "it would have been better for him not to
have written that letter."

"It's hard to say," Matt answered. "I thought so, too, at first. I
thought it was cowardly and selfish of him to take away his children's
superstition about his honesty. You knew that they held to that through
all?"

"Most touching thing in the world," said the doctor, leaning forward to
push a fly off his horse with the limp point of his whip. "That poor old
maid has talked it into me till I almost believed it myself."

"I don't know that I should hold him severely accountable. And I'm not
sure now that I should condemn him for writing that letter. It must have
been a great relief to him. In a way, you may say he _had_ to do it.
It's conceivable that if he had kept it on his mind any longer, his mind
would have given way. As it is, they have now the comfort of another
superstition--if it is a superstition. What do you think, doctor? Do you
believe that there was a mental twist in him?"

"There seems to be in nearly all these defaulters. What they do is so
senseless--so insane. I suppose that's the true theory of all crime. But
it won't do to act upon it, yet awhile."

"No."

The doctor went on after a pause, with a laugh of enjoyment at the
notion. "Above all, it won't do to let the defaulters act upon that
theory, and apply for admission to the insane asylums instead of taking
the express for Canada, when they're found out."

"Oh, no," said Matt. He wondered at himself for being able to analyze
the offence of Suzette's father so cold-bloodedly. But in fact he could
not relate the thought of her to the thought of him in his sin, at all;
he could only realize their kindred in her share of his suffering.

XIX.

Putney accepted Suzette's authorization of Matt with apparent
unconsciousness of anything but its immediate meaning, and they talked
Pinney's scheme intimately over together. In the end, it still remained
a question whether the energies of such an investigator could be
confined to the discovery of Northwick's whereabouts; whether his
newspaper instincts would not be too strong for any sense of personal
advantage that could be appealed to in him. They both believed that it
would not be long before Northwick followed up the publication of his
letter by some communication with his family.

But time began to go by again, and Northwick made no further sign; the
flur