It never struck them
that she might have done it for her son!"

"Her son!" exclaimed Polly.

"Ah! she was a clever woman," he ejaculated enthusiastically, "one with
courage and presence of mind, which I don't think I have ever seen
equalled. She runs downstairs before going to bed in order to see
whether the last post has brought any letters. She sees the door of her
husband's office ajar, she pushes it open, and there, by the sudden
flash of a hastily struck match she realizes in a moment that a thief
stands before the open safe, and in that thief she has already
recognized her son. At that very moment she hears the watchman's step
approaching the partition. There is no time to warn her son; she does
not know the glass door is locked; James Fairbairn may switch on the
electric light and see the young man in the very act of robbing his
employers' safe.

"One thing alone can reassure the watchman. One person alone had the
right to be there at that hour of the night, and without hesitation she
pronounces her husband's name.

"Mind you, I firmly believe that at the time the poor woman only wished
to gain time, that she had every hope that her son had not yet had the
opportunity to lay so heavy a guilt upon his conscience.

"What passed between mother and son we shall never know, but this much
we do know, that the young villain made off with his booty, and trusted
that his mother would never betray him. Poor woman! what a night of it
she must have spent; but she was clever and far-seeing. She knew that
her husband's character could not suffer through her action.
Accordingly, she took the only course open to her to save her son even
from his father's wrath, and boldly denied James Fairbairn's statement.

"Of course, she was fully aware that her husband could easily clear
himself, and the worst that could be said of her was that she had
thought him guilty and had tried to save him. She trusted to the future
to clear her of any charge of complicity in the theft.

"By now every one has forgotten most of the circumstances; the police
are still watching the career of James Fairbairn and Mrs. Ireland's
expenditure. As you know, not a single note, so far, has been traced to
her. Against that, one or two of the notes have found their way back to
England. No one realizes how easy it is to cash English bank-notes at
the smaller _agents de change_ abroad. The _changeurs_ are only too glad
to get them; what do they care where t