as sacredly mine
as--"

"Come, come, prophet," interrupted Flambeau, with a kind of sneer;
"remember that all this world is a cloudland."

The hierophant of the sun-god made an effort to climb back on his
pedestal. "It is not the mere money," he cried, "though that would equip
the cause throughout the world. It is also my beloved one's wishes. To
Pauline all this was holy. In Pauline's eyes--"

Father Brown suddenly sprang erect, so that his chair fell over flat
behind him. He was deathly pale, yet he seemed fired with a hope; his
eyes shone.

"That's it!" he cried in a clear voice. "That's the way to begin. In
Pauline's eyes--"

The tall prophet retreated before the tiny priest in an almost mad
disorder. "What do you mean? How dare you?" he cried repeatedly.

"In Pauline's eyes," repeated the priest, his own shining more and more.
"Go on--in God's name, go on. The foulest crime the fiends ever prompted
feels lighter after confession; and I implore you to confess. Go on, go
on--in Pauline's eyes--"

"Let me go, you devil!" thundered Kalon, struggling like a giant in
bonds. "Who are you, you cursed spy, to weave your spiders' webs round
me, and peep and peer? Let me go."

"Shall I stop him?" asked Flambeau, bounding towards the exit, for Kalon
had already thrown the door wide open.

"No; let him pass," said Father Brown, with a strange deep sigh that
seemed to come from the depths of the universe. "Let Cain pass by, for
he belongs to God."

There was a long-drawn silence in the room when he had left it, which
was to Flambeau's fierce wits one long agony of interrogation. Miss Joan
Stacey very coolly tidied up the papers on her desk.

"Father," said Flambeau at last, "it is my duty, not my curiosity
only--it is my duty to find out, if I can, who committed the crime."

"Which crime?" asked Father Brown.

"The one we are dealing with, of course," replied his impatient friend.

"We are dealing with two crimes," said Brown, "crimes of very different
weight--and by very different criminals."

Miss Joan Stacey, having collected and put away her papers, proceeded to
lock up her drawer. Father Brown went on, noticing her as little as she
noticed him.

"The two crimes," he observed, "were committed against the same weakness
of the same person, in a struggle for her money. The author of the
larger crime found himself thwarted by the smaller crime; the author of
the smaller crime got the money."

"Oh, don't go