oughtful silence, and her
movements were beginning to show a troubled discomfort. Finally Richards
got up and strode aimlessly about the room, ploughing his hands through
his hair, much as a somnambulist might do who was having a bad dream.
Then he seemed to arrive at a definite purpose; and without a word
he put on his hat and passed quickly out of the house. His wife sat
brooding, with a drawn face, and did not seem to be aware that she was
alone. Now and then she murmured, "Lead us not into t... but--but--we
are so poor, so poor!... Lead us not into... Ah, who would be hurt by
it?--and no one would ever know... Lead us...." The voice died out
in mumblings. After a little she glanced up and muttered in a
half-frightened, half-glad way--

"He is gone! But, oh dear, he may be too late--too late... Maybe
not--maybe there is still time." She rose and stood thinking, nervously
clasping and unclasping her hands. A slight shudder shook her frame, and
she said, out of a dry throat, "God forgive me--it's awful to think such
things--but... Lord, how we are made--how strangely we are made!"

She turned the light low, and slipped stealthily over and knelt down by
the sack and felt of its ridgy sides with her hands, and fondled them
lovingly; and there was a gloating light in her poor old eyes. She fell
into fits of absence; and came half out of them at times to mutter "If
we had only waited!--oh, if we had only waited a little, and not been in
such a hurry!"

Meantime Cox had gone home from his office and told his wife all
about the strange thing that had happened, and they had talked it over
eagerly, and guessed that the late Goodson was the only man in the town
who could have helped a suffering stranger with so noble a sum as twenty
dollars. Then there was a pause, and the two became thoughtful and
silent. And by-and-by nervous and fidgety. At last the wife said, as if
to herself,

"Nobody knows this secret but the Richardses... and us... nobody."

The husband came out of his thinkings with a slight start, and gazed
wistfully at his wife, whose face was become very pale; then he
hesitatingly rose, and glanced furtively at his hat, then at his wife--a
sort of mute inquiry. Mrs. Cox swallowed once or twice, with her hand at
her throat, then in place of speech she nodded her head. In a moment she
was alone, and mumbling to herself.

And now Richards and Cox were hurrying through the deserted streets,
from opposite direction