r. Van Ostend stepped quickly to the
door and, opening it, stood on the threshold. Something very like a
diaphanous white cloud enwrapped him; two thin arms, visible through it,
went suddenly round his neck; then his arms enfolded her.

"Oh, Papsy dear, don't hug me so hard! You'll crush all my flowers. Ben
sent them; wasn't he a dear? I've promised him the cotillon to-night for
them. Good night." She pecked at his cheek again as he released her; the
cloud of white liberty silk tulle drifted away from the doorway and left
it a blank.

Mr. Van Ostend closed the door; came back to the hearth; stood there,
his arms folded tightly over his chest, his head bowed. For a few
minutes neither man spoke. When the clock on the mantel chimed a quarter
to nine, Father Honore made a movement to go. Mr. Van Ostend turned
quickly to him and put out a detaining hand.

"May I ask if you are going to continue the search this evening; it's a
bad night."

"Yes; I've had the feeling that, after he has been so long in hiding,
he'll have to come out--he must be at the end of his strength. I am
going out with two detectives now; they have been on the case with me.
This is quite apart from the general detective agency's work."

"Father Honore," Mr. Van Ostend spoke with apparent effort, "I know I am
right in my reasoning--and you are right in your fundamentals. We both
may be wrong in the end, you in appealing to me for this aid to restrain
prosecution, and I in giving it. Time alone will show us. But if we are,
we must take the consequences of our act. If, by yielding, I make it
easier for another man to do as Champney Googe has done, may God forgive
me; I could never forgive myself. If you, in asking this, have erred in
freeing from his punishment a man who deserves every bit he can get, you
will have to reckon with your own conscience.--Don't misunderstand me.
No spirit of philanthropy influences me in my act. Don't credit me with
any 'love-to-man' attitude. I am going to advance the sum necessary to
avoid prosecution if you find him; but I do it solely on that mother's
account, and"--he hesitated--"because I don't want her, whom you have
just seen, connected, even remotely, by the thought of what a
penitentiary term implies. I don't want to entertain the thought that
even the hem of _my_ child's garment has been so much as touched by a
hand that will work at hard labor for seven, perhaps fifteen, years. And
I want you to understand that