when he was a little boy
it was always there--behind him, or before, or on either side. There had
always been the shadowed corner, the dark place into which he dared not
look, but from which something seemed always to be watching him--and
Paul had done things that were not pretty to watch, he knew.

But now he had a curious sense of relief, as though he had at last
thrown down the gauntlet to the thing in the corner.

Yet it was but a day since he had been sulking in the traces; but
yesterday afternoon that he had been sent to the bank with Denny &
Carson's deposit, as usual--but this time he was instructed to leave the
book to be balanced. There was above two thousand dollars in checks, and
nearly a thousand in the bank notes which he had taken from the book
and quietly transferred to his pocket. At the bank he had made out a
new deposit slip. His nerves had been steady enough to permit of his
returning to the office, where he had finished his work and asked for
a full day's holiday tomorrow, Saturday, giving a perfectly reasonable
pretext. The bankbook, he knew, would not be returned before Monday or
Tuesday, and his father would be out of town for the next week. From
the time he slipped the bank notes into his pocket until he boarded the
night train for New York, he had not known a moment's hesitation. It was
not the first time Paul had steered through treacherous waters.

How astonishingly easy it had all been; here he was, the thing done;
and this time there would be no awakening, no figure at the top of the
stairs. He watched the snowflakes whirling by his window until he fell
asleep.

When he awoke, it was three o'clock in the afternoon. He bounded up with
a start; half of one of his precious days gone already! He spent more
than an hour in dressing, watching every stage of his toilet carefully
in the mirror. Everything was quite perfect; he was exactly the kind of
boy he had always wanted to be.

When he went downstairs Paul took a carriage and drove up Fifth Avenue
toward the Park. The snow had somewhat abated; carriages and tradesmen's
wagons were hurrying soundlessly to and fro in the winter twilight; boys
in woolen mufflers were shoveling off the doorsteps; the avenue stages
made fine spots of color against the white street. Here and there on
the corners were stands, with whole flower gardens blooming under glass
cases, against the sides of which the snowflakes stuck and melted;
violets, roses, carnati