r a year," Madge
said, as we chatted the whole thing over, "and you can no longer
brag that the K. & A. has never had a robbery, even if you didn't
lose anything."

"I have lost something," I sighed sadly.

Madge looked at me quickly, started to speak, hesitated, and then
said, "Oh, Mr. Gordon, if you only could know how badly I have
felt about that, and how I appreciate the sacrifice."

I had only meant that I had lost my heart, and, for that matter,
probably my head, for it would have been ungenerous even to hint
to Miss Cullen that I had made any sacrifice of conscience for
her sake, and I would as soon have asked her to pay for it in
money as have told her.

"You mustn't think--" I began.

"I have felt," she continued, "that your wish to serve us made
you do something you never would have otherwise done, for--Well,
you--any one can see how truthful and honest--and it has made me
feel so badly that we--Oh, Mr. Gordon, no one has a right to do
wrong in this world, for it brings such sadness and danger to
innocent--And you have been so generous--"

I couldn't let this go on. "What I did," I told her, "was to
fight fire with fire, and no one is responsible for it but
myself."

"I should like to think that, but I can't," she said. "I know we
all tried to do something dishonest, and while you didn't do any
real wrong, yet I don't think you would have acted as you did
except for our sake. And I'm afraid you may some day regret--"

"I sha'n't," I cried; "and, so far from meaning that I had lost
my self-respect, I was alluding to quite another thing."

"Time?" she asked.

"No."

"What?"

"Something else you have stolen."

"I haven't," she denied.

"You have," I affirmed.

"You mean the novel?" she asked; "because I sent it in to 97
to-night."

"I don't mean the novel."

"I can't think of anything more but those pieces of petrified
wood, and those you gave me," she said demurely. "I am sure that
whatever else I have of yours you have given me without even my
asking, and if you want it back you've only got to say so."

"I suppose that would be my very best course," I groaned.

"I hate people who force a present on one," she continued, "and
then, just as one begins to like it, want it back."

Before I could speak, she asked hurriedly, "How often do you come
to Chicago?"

I took that to be a sort of command that I was to wait, and
though longing to have it settled then and there, I braked myself