assertion to go uncontradicted.
That reference to the woman's innocence was an arraignment of himself,
for it had been he who sent her to the term of imprisonment.

"Don't talk to me about her innocence!" he said, and his voice was
ominous. "I suppose next you will argue that, because she's been clever
enough to keep within the law, since she's got out of State Prison,
she's not a criminal. But let me tell you--crime is crime, whether the
law touches it in the particular case, or whether it doesn't."

Gilder faced his son sternly for a moment, and then presently spoke
again with deeper earnestness.

"There's only one course open to you, my boy. You must give this girl
up."

The son met his father's gaze with a level look in which there was no
weakness.

"I've told you, Dad----" he began.

"You must, I tell you," the father insisted. Then he went on quickly,
with a tone of utmost positiveness. "If you don't, what are you going to
do the day your wife is thrown into a patrol wagon and carried to Police
Headquarters--for it's sure to happen? The cleverest of people make
mistakes, and some day she'll make one."

Dick threw out his hands in a gesture of supreme denial. He was furious
at this supposition that she would continue in her irregular practices.

But the father went on remorselessly.

"They will stand her up where the detectives will walk past her with
masks on their faces. Her picture, of course, is already in the Rogues'
Gallery, but they will take another. Yes, and the imprints of her
fingers, and the measurements of her body."

The son was writhing under the words. The woman of whom these things
were said was the woman whom he loved. It was blasphemy to think of
her in such case, subjected to the degradation of these processes. Yet,
every word had in it the piercing, horrible sting of truth. His face
whitened. He raised a supplicating hand.

"Father!"

"That's what they will do to your wife," Gilder went on harshly; "to the
woman who bears your name and mine." There was a little pause, and the
father stood rigid, menacing. The final question came rasping. "What are
you going to do about it?"

Dick went forward until he was close to his father. Then he spoke with
profound conviction.

"It will never happen. She will go straight, Dad. That I know. You would
know it if you only knew her as I do."

Gilder once again put his hand tenderly on his son's shoulder. His voice
was modulated to an unaccu