case--whether I thought it would be right to let the girl go on a suspended sentence. I told him frankly that I believed that an example should be made of her, for the sake of others who might be tempted to steal. Property has some rights, Demarest, although it seems to be getting nowadays so that anybody is likely to deny it." Then the fretful, half-alarmed note sounded in his voice again, as he continued: "I can't understand why the girl wants to see me."

The lawyer smiled dryly, since he had his back turned at the moment.

"Why," he vouchsafed, "she just said that, if you would see her for ten minutes, she would tell you how to stop the thefts in this store."

Gilder displayed signs of triumph. He brought his chair to a level and pounded the desk with a weighty fist.

"There!" he cried. "I knew it. The girl wants to confess. Well, it's the first sign of decent feeling she's shown. I suppose it ought to be encouraged. Probably there have been others mixed up in this."

Demarest attempted no denial.

"Perhaps," he admitted, though he spoke altogether without conviction. "But," he continued insinuatingly, "at least it can do no harm if you see her. I thought you would be willing, so I spoke to the District Attorney, and he has given orders to bring her here for a few minutes on the way to the Grand Central Station. They're taking her up to Burnsing, you know. I wish, Gilder, you would have a little talk with her. No harm in that!" With the saying, the lawyer abruptly went out of the office, leaving the owner of the store fuming.

CHAPTER IV. KISSES AND KLEPTOMANIA.

"Hello, Dad!"

After the attorney's departure, Gilder had been rather fussily going over some of the papers on his desk. He was experiencing a vague feeling of injury on account of the lawyer's ill-veiled efforts to arouse his sympathy in behalf of the accused girl. In the instinct of strengthening himself against the possibility of yielding to what he deemed weakness, the magnate rehearsed the facts that justified his intolerance, and, indeed, soon came to gloating over the admirable manner in which righteousness thrives in the world. And it was then that an interruption came in the utterance of two words, words of affection, of love, cried out in the one voice he most longed to hear--for the voice was that of his son. Yet, he did not look up. The thing was 

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