est. She
placed her finger on his lips. Never before had he felt such
over-powering love for her. And yet she held him in check in spite of
himself.

"Take enough to last a few months," she added hastily. "Give me the
rest. I can hide it and take care of myself. Even if they trace me I
can get off. A woman can always do that more easily than a man. Don't
worry about me. Go somewhere, start a new life. If it takes years, I
will wait. Let me know where you are. We can find some way in which I
can come back into your life. No, no,"--Carlton had caught her
passionately in his arms--"even that cannot weaken me. The die is cast.
We must go."

She tore herself away from him and fled into her room, where, with set
face and ashen lips, she stuffed article after article into her grip.
With a heavy heart Carlton did the same. The bottom had dropped out of
everything, yet try as he would to reason it out, he could find no
other solution but hers. To stay was out of the question, if indeed it
was not already too late to run. To go together was equally out of the
question. Constance had shown that. "Seek the woman," was the first
rule of the police.

As they left the apartment they could see a man across the street
following them closely. They were shadowed. In despair Carlton turned
toward his wife. A sudden idea had flashed over her. There were two
taxicabs at the station on the corner.

"I will take the first," she whispered. "Take the second and follow me.
Then he cannot trace us."

They were off, leaving the baffled shadow only time to take the numbers
of the cab. Constance had thought of that. She stopped and Carlton
joined her. After a short walk they took another cab.

He looked at her inquiringly, but she said nothing. In her eyes he saw
the same fire that blazed when she had asked him if there was no way to
avoid discovery and had suggested it herself in the forgery. He reached
over and caressed her hand. She did not withdraw it, but her averted
eyes told that she could not trust even herself too far.

As they stood before the gateway to the steps that led down into the
long under-river tunnel which was to swallow them so soon and project
them, each into a new life, hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles apart,
Carlton realized as never before what it all had meant. He had loved
her through all the years, but never with the wild love of the past two
weeks. Now there was nothing but blackness and blankness. He felt as