evidently gone--frightened away by the
horrors of the night--or she wouldn't try to cling to what has branded
her at once as a thief."

The word seemed to pierce the girl. She stared out at her former
mistress, who was again being soothed by the clerk, and murmured
hoarsely:

"A thief! and he don't seem to mind, but is just as good to her! Oh, oh,
I once served a term myself for--for a smaller thing than that and I
thought that was why----Oh, sir, oh, sir, there's no mistake about the
paper. For I went looking about in the barrels and where they throw the
refuse, for bits to prove that this papering had been done in the night.
It seemed so wonderful to me that any one, even Jake, who is the
smartest man you ever saw, could do such a job as that and no one know.
And though I found nothing in the barrels, I did in the laundry stove.
It was full of burned paper, and some of it showed colour, and it was
just that musty old blue I had seen in the attic."

She paused with a terrified gasp; Jake was looking at her from the open
door.

"Oh, Jake!" she wailed out, "why weren't you true to me? Why did you
pretend to love me when you didn't?"

He gave her a look, then turned on his heel. He was very much subdued in
aspect and did not think to brush away the tear still glistening on his
cheek.

"I've said my last word to _you_," he quietly declared, then stood
silent a moment, with slowly labouring chest and an air of deepest
gloom. But, as his eye stole outside again, they saw the spirit melt
within him and simple human grief take the place of icy resolution. "She
was like a mother to me," he murmured. "And now they say she'll never be
herself again as long as she lives." Suddenly his head rose and he faced
the coroner.

"You're right," said he. "It's all up with me. No home, no sweetheart,
no missus. _She_ [there was no doubt as to whom he meant by that
tremulous _she_] was the only one I've ever cared for and she's just
shown herself a thief. I'm no better. This is our story."

I will not give it in his words, but in my own. It will be shorter and
possibly more intelligible.

The gang, if you may call it so, consisted of Quimby and these two, with
a servant or so in addition. Robbery was its aim; a discreet and none
too frequent spoliation of such of their patrons as lent themselves to
their schemes. Quimby was the head, his wife the soul of this business,
and Jake their devoted tool. The undermining of the latter's