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Show BBCKe LASH of II Jj CIRCDMS1ANCE Wlmt Harry Irving Greene hMM 'Avtlior qTTosorxle of 1bc. Wilderness" CSAjJ IlkiarrnTloris MagriuA O. Ketliiar- Jc. fieSry rorvwowt two ay v o. omw tJT?n?V. Tf. J alderatloa upon tbt part of jrour uncle, and ought to keep aa fur away from him in the future aa you reasonably ran. It seems to Die aa If there Is but one thing for you to do, and 1 want you to do It. Go away and wake a new start lomewbere vine wtiere everything you ate will not be a reminder re-minder of this period In your Ufa. You will be able to do better work, and more hopeful work, among other sur-rounding. sur-rounding. Your secret will be safe with ni. I will tell your uncle- that I have been unable to recover the money and will throw up the cane. Will you agree to do aa I have suggested sug-gested If I release you?" It was my only way of escape, and the wisdom of the advice seemed to beyond doubting. With my bosom almost al-most bursting, and atartng straight ahead through dimmed eyes, I assented. assent-ed. "I will go almost Immediately. Hut there la one thing which I must do before leaving. I must first aee Matle Mrs. Dace, I mean, and have a long talk with her perhaps several of them and that may delay me for a few days. I love her better thnn all else In the world, and If she really union when my disaster rame. N..iih er have I any doubt but that Muckay was Infatuated with the woman, saw that I waa winning her and started out to get rid of me. He probably learned of my speculations, and knowing that if he could wreck them It would effectively dispose of me so far as she was concerned, ruthlessly tore down the fortunes of many that I might be crushed in the crash. And he succeeded perfectly. Mrs. Dace, being convinced by him that I waa ruined, and probably having been wavering somewhat between us; preferring pre-ferring me, but being tempted by his wealth, hesitated no longer when she became satisfied that I could not give her what she had made up her mind to have. Realizing as I did all along that we never could have been happy without considerable money. I would not have blamed her particularly for making the choice that she did bad not Mackay been a married man. Even aa It U. I bear her no 111 will and do not bolleve that she was an Immoral woman. There was a great deal of good In her. but she wm i-elflsh and cared little for the suffer- i for the purpose. I bad you Jamb your thumb against the ball of soft putty and got an excellent Impression of It, which I have bad experts compare with the faint lines on the blackened paper. They assure me that they were both made by the same thumb." It was a good thing that LeDuo had possessed the foresight to render me helpless and secure my revolver. In the frenzy of the moment I certainly certain-ly would have used It upon one or both of us. I turned upon him desperately. des-perately. "Do you think any Jury would believe aucb evidence aa that and convict me?" I demanded huskily. He wrinkled hla forehead. "I am sure I don't know. One can never tell. Do you want to give a Jury the chance?" I made no aniwer and we sat In alienee, the coldness of death upon me, my companion un-movlng, un-movlng, but lynx eyed. Then once more be addressed me, and through hla tones ran the old familiar friend-lines friend-lines of days long gone by. "I know that you are not a criminal crim-inal at heart, Tom. 1 aic sorry, very sorry for all this, and I should regret very much to see you go to the penitentiary. peni-tentiary. Hut If you wIhIi me to assist as-sist you, you must make a clean breast of the affair. Have you any of your unclo'a money left?" I could only groan. Despairing and helpless I threw myself upon his mercy. "No. I used It for further speculation specula-tion after I waa wiped out the first time. I was way ahead of the game until today, but now I am wiped out completely. 1 am penniless and In debt. I can repay absolutely nothing caa offer no compromise. You will have to do as you please with me." Ix-Duc whistled. "I wondered If you had got bitten today for the second time when 1 read that Underground had blown up. So that ends my prospects of getting any fees for a lot of hard work." He looked quite downcast for a space, then brightened up and continued more cheerfully. "Hut really that does not matter so much after all, for I can worry along without It. If I could only have found that some one besides an old friend had done thin thing I would not be dissatisfied with my Job. Hut there is a thing or two which I don't understand. I don't believe you had a duplicate key, for I don't believe you ever contemplated such an act until you were driven desperate by the calamity. I have gone upon the fiHHiiui pt Inn that you quarreled with your uncle the day before the robbery on purpose that you might have an excuse for throwing down the key and absenting yourself from the 'house during the night That being the case, how did you enter?" "When I left the house after the quarrel I threw the catch which prevails pre-vails the door from ' locking. Of course It would snap shut as usual, but could then be opened from the outside by the knob. I had no Idea that any one would think of looking to see that the door locked Itself when It waa shut on that day any more than any other, and of course no one did. I was therefore enabled to come in without a key, and when I went out after replacing the tools, and with the money In my pockets, 1 restored the door to Its usual condl- perate plight at the exact time when you became possessed of the knowledge knowl-edge that your uncle had this large amount of money In an old, weak aafe the combination of dire extremity and sudden opportunity. It was your last hope and you went after It as drowning man goes after a floating oar. You got it, and for a time It buoyed you." I writhed In my helplessness. help-lessness. "And you supposed I conjured burglar burg-lar tools out of the air by a wave of my hand, together with the skill to use them." He smiled restroapac-tlvely. restroapac-tlvely. "No. I still had that difficulty to overcome. For a little while It had me stumped, and then I chanced to recall that you went for a year or so to a technical school and learned a good deal about the use of tools. Now, I knew that many young men keep their kit after leaving such places, and I wondered If you had. I also remembered re-membered having noticed a sort of a tool chest In the basement on the day I examined the premises, and I now concluding that It was time for me to know what was In It Therefore There-fore I burglarized your basement by forcing the back door, picked the lock of the chest and examined Its contents. Among the tools I found one of exactly the size of the one that had bored the safe, and upon doner Inspection found that a bit of It had been broken off In the operation, and that bit of steel you now see on the table before you. I found It on the morning; I went over the room. You will remember what a painfully minute mi-nute scrutiny I made of everything even using my magnifying glims." He gathered up the card case, the ticket and the bit of steel and placed them carefully In an envelope which he deposited In bis pocket. IIi then turned to tho piece of soiled paper and the lump of grayish matter. "I had now tlie chain of proof connecting con-necting you with the crime forged with the exception of one link, which could I supply would make It practically prac-tically unbreakable. On one of the .not tg;igfB which had been blackened by burnt powder was a fairly good imprint of a right thumb. I tore olt the fragment of paper containing It and by placing It under the microscope micro-scope could dlHtlnctly trace the lines. Of course such lines are not the same on any two persons In the world; and could I get an Imprint of your thumb and by comparison find that they corresponded, cor-responded, there could then be no further fur-ther doubt as to your hand being the one that had rummaged the safe. Rut this was a difficult thing to do without with-out arousing your suspicions. I finally got around It however, by organizing our burglary for the double purpose of getting the print and calling to your attention the probability of your having lost your card case In ir vu( "Under the Horror of That Moment All Strength Left Me." The detective drew it from bis pocket and looked at It reflectively. "I showed It to you that day downtown down-town merely to create the Impression In your mind that I bad Bruce under suspicion and had not thought of you in connection with the matter. He probably threw it there thoughtlessly In his trouble as be entered the house on the morning we were all there together. to-gether. Now I am satisfied that you drugged the poor devil, and I know that you had the cabman send him to J that resort That was bad enough In Itself, but when I remember also that you tried to fasten suspicion upon him 1 am Inclined to lose all sympathy for you which I might otherwise have. To my mind your treachery In that respect Is by far the worst element of your offense. I can understand bow a man's Infatuation for a woman may sometimes lead him to dishonesty or even bloodshed, and under those circumstances I am liable to have a lot of charity for blm. Hut when he attempts to put a friend whom he knows Is Innocent Into a felon's cell and thus destroy him and the happiness of a sweet woman, he does an act unworthy of any one who possesses the semblance of humanity or decency." "LeDuc." I cried brokenly, "whatever "what-ever else I say you may believe or not as you see fit, but when I tell you this I want you to believe me Implicitly. Im-plicitly. 1 had absolutely no Idea of trying to fasten It on Hruce, I told you and everybody else from the beginning be-ginning In the strongest language that I could command that I did not for an instant believe that he could be guilty. Neither would I have permitted per-mitted him to be punished for the crime. If he had been tried and convicted con-victed I should have confessed, come w hat might. Hut I knew he would not bo convicted, because I was certain If he had no other alternative he would tell where he spent the night I did not know how he came In possession pos-session of the key, Rnd simply told you of having seen him have It. because I wished to appear as telling you all that I knew, and having no Idea but that Hruce would Immediately account for it. I admit that I dropped a drug In his cocktail, and that I was tho one who told the cabman where to tuke him after he fell unconscious upon the seat, but that was for an entirely different purpose than to try to Incriminate him. I made him unconscious un-conscious merely out of fear that he would return to my uncle's house In another attempt to borrow money and possibly roll into my bed for the night as he has sometimes done, thus Interfering with my plans. And I had him conveyed to the place he was taken to Instead of to where he was known for the reason that 1 did not wish his friends to see him In that condition and think be was Intoxicated. In-toxicated. I had no Idea that he would be suspected of this affair, for I did not know he would be so obstinate about refusing to tell where he had been, nor did I know that he would deny having had the key; while as for the cigarette I had nothing to do with It. Therefore I supposed he would awake In the morning, come away, and that no harm would have been done. And when I feared that by reason of several accidents he was In danger of being suspected, I said everything I could to clear him except ex-cept to acknowledge my own guilt." "I am glad that you have explained that the way you have. I like you a whole lot the better for it Hut how about your mentioning the fact of the money to Mrs. Dace, and why did you cough as you choked your uncle? Was that an attempt to Implicate Mackay?" "You may look at It In that light If you choose. I utterly despised the man; knew that he would do me all the harm that he could by fair means or foul, and did not care what happened hap-pened to him. I did It with the idea that II might possibly furnish a false clue for you to tire yourself out on." "Anything more?" be urged as I paused. Utterly within his power I made this last appeal. "Only this. Knowing that I am a criminal and by all law should go to prlRon for many years, probably to die there, 1 have this to say In Justification Justi-fication of myself. Until I committed com-mitted this crime I had always been an honest man with no thought of being be-ing otherwise and with no desire to harm a living thing. Hut because of my love for a woman for whom I would this moment gladly give my life, and because I could see no other way of gaining her except by speculation. specu-lation. I fell Into temptation as many better man has done. Driven onward on-ward by a love at whose command I would have faced hades Itself, I used my own money first, losing $1,000 upon the race In the attempt to win a large sum. and the rest In the first break In that stock. In my desperation despera-tion I committed this crime as the only means of getting more funds with which to win that for which I would have staked my life as readily as I did my liberty. Had 1 succeeded, I should have married this woman and lived an honest life thereafter; having hav-ing lost I will bear whatever punishment punish-ment comes to me without whimpering; whimper-ing; and should I live through my Imprisonment will seek to atone for my crime In my after life. 1 would like to have you believe what I say." His hand fell upon mine as softly as a woman's. "1 believe you, Tom, and would trust you this minute with every cent 1 have In the world. As you know. It Is one of my theories that It Is better to save a naturally honest nian who has gone wrong and make a good citizen out of him again, than to wreck blm by the disgrace of his having been a convict. You have learned your lesson and 1 have no fear of your ever becoming a rogue again. Hut you have resigned your enaliinit forfaited ail claims f - " SYNOPSIS. Abner If nlllHay, a miserly millionaire, I found gagged, bound and Insensible In his roimi, his safe rifled and $.i0 mlsa-Ing mlsa-Ing Tha thread of tit story la takan up by hla nephew Turn, Living In tha ama house are. nthar relatlvea: rerkleaa Hruca Halllday and Ptetiy Clara Wintun. Hruca. who I a hum! broker, has been trying to rata llO.ofni tn put through deal and aave hlinaelf from financial ruin. Ha ha applied to hla miserly uruia anil to other for tha loan but haa ben refused Tom sends for William l,I.ue. an old-Hum friend connected with a detactlva agency In relntlng the alory Tom roverta In hla arniialntanca with a Mri. Para, a wealthy wlilow. whose business agent la Hlchard, Markay. a boodh-r and political boaa. Tom la Jealous of Markay and In deeply In love with Mra. Iare. Ftrtue lilllliny warna lilm tn ahun her aa nn advanturesa, Tom sees Mra lae and Mackay together, togeth-er, lie. afterward nieeta tha woman at horse race, and, happening to mention that Hruce had a tip on tha winner, aha gives him IVm tn place on the race. Tha tip goes wrung and aha luaea her money. I rtter Tom Invests In atoeks. Ha makes una money, ami retiirna the lost tioo to Mra laee. It la at this Juncture that tha theft of the Hfl.nm from old Ahnar Halll-diy Halll-diy occura. I luc meets f'lara and Kruce Ma Icarna that the key which ('lure had to the house la mlaalng. Mackay' Mac-kay' dealing with Mrs. 1 aca mnka Tom more Jealous The detox-live IntlmatM a suspicion huh I roil Hruce ItitlMday a tha thief. This 'lure VVInton Indignantly re. podlntes. Mra I'ace accepta Tom aa her bunco, and encourage him to Inveat tn certain slocks Tom haa a row with Mackny and tha latter threatens revenga. The detective announces that he haa dls-nivered dls-nivered liriporlnnt clews a to the thief ft looks hm If Mackay bad got hold of Tom's key to Hie llalllilny home and rnti;h( biive been the burglar. Tom suddenly sud-denly finds himself financially ruined lla bairns that Mutiny had o manipulated he storks Unit he lost everything The detective calls Tom to conference- and announces ha bus discovered the pernio wbo atole the HOtum from old Abner llal-llday llal-llday Tom asks the inane of the culprit. Hlernly and emphatically Ijo Hue. declares that It Is himself. CHAPTER XVI (Continued.) "I have nothing further to any at present than to repeat that you will repent of your Idiocy later," was my frigid comment. lie laid aside the rard case as having been disposed of xnd began toying with tho bookmaker's bookma-ker's ticket. "Helng now thoroughly convinced 5f your guilt I begun worrying my Soad for guod, tangible proof of It; proof that would convince 12 men who would be naturally prepossessed n your favor at the beginning because Jf your nppenrauce and guod record. '. hated to believe you capable) of a thing like this, but was forced to; ind as yon know w hen I tackle a man n any content, friendly or otherwise, I im going to down him If I can; leuv-ng leuv-ng tins matter of whnt I will da to ini after I have thrown him dopond-nt dopond-nt a good deal upon his own actions, f he yells quits I am always inclined 4) help him up, but If ho wants to Igbt It out to the end of course I am lot going to give up. Now your de-'Otion de-'Otion to Mrs. Dace was well known ibout town and when I became ad; Ised or It I began thinking hard. It vent without saying that It was cost-ng cost-ng you money to court her, and I did tot believe that your salary was sufficient suffi-cient for you to be able to keep up :he pace long on that alone There-'ore There-'ore I naturally wondered where you st the rest. When In tracing you back-ards back-ards I found out that you had been 10 the Derby, another bright thought ccurred to me. You remember the uysterlous man who came to your ioush with the forged note snd got .he suit of clothes you had wtirn on :hat day? Well, that was another .rtlflce of mine. I wondered if there ould possibly bo any evidences In 'our pockets of a gambling transiu-,lon transiu-,lon on that event. I know from perianal per-ianal experience how apt a man Is to ;arry around expired passe and orthlesB truck of that kind for a -onslderablo period before destroying .hem, so I sent an employee of mine to our house with an order written on no of the card 1 had found calling or the Derby day suit, not knowing low else to describe It. lie got It without trouble, and I Intercepted him n the way to the tailor and searched .he pockets. In them I found your sort bless ticket on Kagle Hoy You Hid bet $1,000 on that race In the top of winning ten thousand; had st and failed to destroy your good r nothing ticket." "I suppose In your Infinite wisdom ou also know that 1 had money left ne by my father which I was at lib ?rty to use as I saw fit." 1 broke In -uttlngly. He acknowledged that be tossessed that Information. "Yes. I found out that you had some-hing some-hing In reserve; but the most Im-xirtant Im-xirtant fact It conveyed to me was .bat you had taken to secret gambling 11 the hope of winning enough to en-ble en-ble you to keep up your new life. -nd knowing somewhat of the nature f men. I knew It was Improbable to uppose that having made a big loss ou would stop without an attempt to regain It. There Is no public gam-allng gam-allng to any extent going on In town txcept on the board of trade and itock exchange; so the chances were S you were doing scything along that Ine It would be at one of those la. Hy few days' of shadowing ou I ascertained that you went to a sertain broker's office, and having fotmd that out It did not take me ng to learn what medium you were tacking. It was the same stock that race went broke on the day before 2 robUery, and I knew In the nature if things that you bad gone broke at he .iinia time be did. You were, fcerefore, aa bard bit as he, but (howed splendid nerve and never aimed balr or let a bint drop. I ts4 bow uncovered your sudden dea- lngs of others provided she gained her own pleasures. The only fear I have of ever again committing crime Is In case I should happen to run across that black scoundrel Mackay. Mac-kay. If I ftbould see him I am afraid i might run amuck. Hruce and Clare are married and are happily spending the money of dead Uncle Abner, who cut me off with a shilling. And that brings uie to the reason for writing this confession. confes-sion. Uncle Abner having passed Into the great beyond, I no longer have any fear that I will be prosecuted, and I never would bo able to feel that I had made my fullest reparation unless un-less I cleared Hruce. For In some way a few things leaked out. and while his friends have clung to him with the greatest toyalty, there are others who have always looked upon htm with more or less suspicion since the night of the robbery. And I know that the consciousness of this Is a cloud that forever hovers upon the horizon of their otherwise bright lives, and It Is, therefore, my moral duty to dispel It As for myself, It makes little difference If the truth Is now known, aa none of my former acquaintances ac-quaintances know where I am snd I shall never return to my old home. Nor do I ask forgiveness or make apology beyond this statement I was not a thief by nature and am thoroughly thor-oughly repentant. Hut I was young and madly enraptured with the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and took desperate chances to gain her. And my love for her, though passion filled, was pure. I wanted her for my wife. As I stole for her, so would I have slaved for ber; fought for ber; died for her. Therefore I only ask that you Judge me as you would be Judged hsd you been In my place. Caught helplessly tn the maelstrom of love and gaming, I went down tn the vortex THE END r7 S "It Was Your Last Hope and Went After It as a Drowning Man Cots After a Floating Osr." cares for me, maybe she will give me another chance to recover myself my-self financially. Of course, she will never know that I did this and perhapsperhaps" per-hapsperhaps" My voice broke and I choked as I vainly attempted to finish my sentence. I heard the click of a lock and felt the handcuff fall from my wrist "You have something more to learn which It hurts me to tell you, but which you must know. I have taken It Into consideration In deciding to let you go. It la a part of your punishment, punish-ment, and while It will be bitter you must bear It like a man. You will hardly see Mrs. Dace again. Richard Mackay has left the city for parts unknown, deserting his family and taking Mrs. Dace with him. The yellow yel-low evening papers are full of It." With the floor beneath me heaving like the deck of a reeling ship, I staggered stag-gered and fell upon my knees before the bed, burying my face In It. Under Un-der the horror of that moment all strength left me and 1 sobbed brokenly. CHAPTER XVII. There Is little more to tell. In the few following days I managed to scrarje enough together to take me to the foreign country where I am now beginning life over, and have probably prob-ably weathered the storm as well as could reasonably be expected. Hut of course I will never again feel Just as I used to, and I don't believe that I will ever fall In love with another woman. In a business way I have done fairly well, having worked eon-sclentlously eon-sclentlously for the last three years, and being once more on the road to moderate success. I have never seen or beard from Mrs. Dace since the time I left her shopping In the store upon the day when I stepped from paradise Into hell at a single stride. She is probably floating down the Nile or yachting on the Mediterranean with Richard Mackay; enjoying herself her-self to a greater or less extent, and I have no doubt thinking quite often of me. The thought of It still gnaw a me r-.ost of the time, but of one thing I am confident to this day. And that Is that she was really very fond of me and would, as she herself said, have preferred to spend ber life with me rather than anybody else had I possessed sufficient money. There-for-? she wanted me to succeed and encouraged me to desperate chances, knowing ss 1 myself did that it was the only chance of achieving fortune qi'lckly; she not being one) of .he kind that Is content to wait for what possessed sufficient money. Hsd I won, I have neTdoubt that he would have married me and that we would bsve been harpy had the money lasted And 1 1 also believe that she was upon th I verge of consenting to our Immediate our previous climb. I told you at the time that I expected to get the proof from one who would not suspect that bs bad furnished it until 1 denounced hleo, and I guess I was correct 1 dOS't believe It entered your bead that you were making the evidence as you went along by which I could send you to the penitentiary. Neither did you suspect that I meant you when I toK you If I ever unraveled tho knot It would be because, of the assistance and clues you bad given mo. Incidentally I might say that the of!". c we burglarised belonged to a friend of mine who loaned it to too tlon, leaving It locked." I-Duc looked at mo with a frown. "That was a thing 1 never did puzzle out to my own satisfaction; yet It was the simplest thing of all. When I think how rudimental It Is. It makes me disgusted with myself to think that I dldnt solve it AH of which gos to show what blunderers blunder-ers we all are when we think we are doing something extremely clever. Another thing along that line which I should like to know Is this. Did you put that half burned cigarette wbero I found It In the balir "I did not; I know nothing about it " |