ray himself when the
first hint of discovery of something wrong came?

It was now near the middle of the month. It would not pay to wait until
the end. Some one of the many firms whose checks they had forged might
have its book balanced at any time now. From day to day small amounts
in cash had already been withdrawn until they were twenty thousand
dollars to the good. They planned to draw out thirty thousand now at
one time. That would give them fifty thousand, roughly half of their
forgeries.

The check was written and the office boy was started to the bank with
it. Carlton followed him at a distance, as he had on other occasions,
ready to note the first sign of trouble as the boy waited at the
teller's window. At last the boy was at the head of the line. He had
passed the check in and his satchel was lying open, with voracious maw,
on the ledge below the wicket for the greedy feeding of stacks of
bills. Why did the teller not raise the wicket and shove out the money
in a coveted pile? Carlton seemed to feel that something was wrong. The
line lengthened and those at the end of the queue began to grow restive
at the delay. One of the bank's officers walked down and spoke to the
boy.

Carlton waited no longer. The game was up. He rushed from his coign of
observation, out of the bank building, and dashed into a telephone
booth.

"Quick, Constance," he shouted over the wire, "leave everything. They
are holding up our check. They have discovered something. Take a cab
and drive slowly around the square. You will find me waiting for you at
the north end."

That night the newspapers were full of the story. There was the whole
thing, exaggerated, distorted, multiplied, until they had become
swindlers of millions instead of thousands. But nevertheless it was
their story. There was only one grain of consolation. It was in the
last paragraph of the news item, and read: "There seems to be no trace
of the man and woman who worked this clever swindle. As if by a
telepathic message they have vanished at just the time when their whole
house of cards collapsed."

They removed every vestige of their work from the apartment. Everything
was destroyed. Constance even began a new water color so that that
might suggest that she had not laid aside her painting.

They had played for a big stake and lost. But the twenty thousand
dollars was something. Now the great problem was to conceal it and
themselves. They had lost, yet if ever b