e game! And Sally knew he was a crook! I
suppose it was the diamonds that fetched her. If you'd looked at his
hands you would have noticed that he hadn't the paws of an honest Green
Mountain farmer. Pick-pocket originally and marvelously deft; but
precious stones are his true metier. The trifling little necklace he had
on his person when he struck Walker's is worth a cool hundred thousand.
He'll have to break it up and sell 'em in the usual way and it will take
time."

Archie sank upon the bed, twisting his hands together. He had done a
horrible thing, hardly second to murder, and his penitence weighed
heavily upon him.

"You are not chaffing me! It doesn't seem possible that the girl would
have deceived me!"

"We never know when they are going to deceive us, Archie! I hate to
think that Sally inherited a strain of lawlessness and yet she hated the
farm and was crazy to escape. I forgot to mention that she lifted a
couple of hundred dollars the old man kept under a plank in the parlor
floor--an emergency fund in case he ever had to run for it. A nasty
trick, I call it; most unfilial on Sally's part. The Walkers are crushed
by her conduct. They have tried to shield her from all the sorrow and
shame of the world; and there was really a very decent young farmer wild
to marry her, old New England stock, revolutionary stuff, aristocrats,
you may say. And if you hadn't muddled everything it would have come
about in time. But you will have your fling, Archie! You certainly
spilled the beans. And I had vouched for you at the Walkers'; it's
almost as bad as though I had betrayed them myself. You will not, of
course, make the serious error of knocking at the Walker door again!
That would be rubbing it in; but I hope you have learned your lesson. It
probably didn't occur to you that I might have been sore enough to
mention somewhere your connection with certain blood stains on the board
walk at Bailey Harbor. You should have a care of yourself!"

"I don't want you to think me ungrateful," Archie stammered. "The girl
made a fool of me; I see it all now!"

"She made a fool of you but you in turn made a fool of me! And while I'm
not caviling, you will pardon me, son, if I suggest that hereafter you
play square with me. I'm no saint, but I wouldn't desert a comrade or
stick a knife in his back. Please understand that I don't mean to curb
your personal enterprise, or set any limit on your little affairs of the
heart. You are not