The Closing Net. Henry Cottrell Rowland

while I, for my part, was full of gratitude and good resolutions. But, said Léontine, the leopard cannot change his spots. Once a thief, always a thief. Sooner or later the old instincts are bound to awaken. "As long as all goes smoothly with you," said she, "all right and good. But if ever you should be pressed; if you were to get in any sort of financial ​difficulty, as happens to all business people at times, you would find the temptation to take the easy way out irresistible. No, Frank," she wrote, "once a thief, always a thief."

      Then she went on to say how, in time, my past was bound to become known, and that there would always surround me an atmosphere of spectacular notoriety, which was bound to hurt my friends and make me, myself, uncomfortable. If I married into the class of society where I now found myself the stain would always stick to wife and children, said Léontine. A reformed burglar, said she, might do for a very quiet or else a Bohemian Society, but was bound to be utterly out of his element in the aristocratic circles of my half-brother and his wife. My duty to them, said Léontine, was to tell them that I could never be of their world and to go away. "Do that before they begin to be conscious of their mistake," she wrote.

      About here I stopped and did some solid thinking. There was no doubt but that the girl was dead right; absolutely right. I had felt it myself in a vague sort of way. It struck me suddenly, and I tell you the thought was a mighty bitter one, that all of this must, of course, have occurred to Edith, but because she was such an angel of a woman, she had decided on her line of duty and meant to follow it at any cost. I wondered if John had seen it in the same way, and decided that, for his part, he was probably so pleased with himself for the fine thing that he was doing as not to reckon in the cost. You see, I was losing my respect for my half-brother, as a man, ​just as I was gaining it for his wife, as a woman. You didn't need an X-ray machine to see smack through John. He was a good, kind, easy-going sort of chap, with artistic tastes, athletic, physically brave, but morally weak. No doubt if he had ever had to work for his living it might have stiffened his back. But he had been an idler from childhood, with all of his wants provided for, and had always been too lazy to use his opportunities to employ what energy he had. He was the typical dilettante, dabbling at art and sports and science, and never making himself the master of anything, least of all himself. No man with any real stuff in him who was care-free, in robust health, with a fine position, and, most of all—and here something blazed up inside me—such a woman as Edith for his wife, would be sitting, as no doubt he was that moment, guzzling whisky in his smoking-room, to go reeling up a little later to snore drunkenly at his wife's side for the rest of the night. Augh!

      It may seem beastly ungrateful of me, my friend, but the idea gave me a sort of hot rage. I felt like going down the stairs and smashing the decanter over his head.

      I took up Léontine's letter again. "As far as your half-brother is concerned," she went on, "it does not so much matter. After all, there is a blood tie between you, and blood is thicker than water. Besides, Frank, I have learned a good deal about him from Kharkoff and another man. He is not a very wonderful person. But, for his wife's sake, do you yourself think that you ought to remain one of ​the household? From what you have told me, I can see that your ransom was all her doing—and why should she have done it?"

      "Yes," I said to myself. "Why should she have done it?"

      From this point the letter jumped into another key. "Frank," wrote Léontine, "don't think that I am urging you to remain in the Under-World. I love your firmness and I adore your strength of purpose. You are too good for a thief; too strong and fine. Oh, my dear, do you think that I have never felt as you do? Do you think that I have never wished to get out of this slough? To look the whole world in the face without fear and without reproach? I am sick of this atmosphere of doubt and defiance. Let us go away together and begin our lives afresh. We are both young and strong and talented. Let us go far away to some new country and begin our lives anew, and on a clean and wholesome footing. Let us pay your money debt, Frank—for all that I have is yours. You told me to-day that Society's debt to you had been paid in full. My dear, Society owes me a debt also; a debt far greater than yours. But if Society will give me you, I will consider the obligation as cancelled"; and then there was a whole lot which would make me feel even more a fool to repeat.

      I dropped the letter on the desk and ran my hands through my hair. The room felt hot, the night was hot, my head was hot. Up I jumped and opened the window on the other side, and a fresh breeze swept in. For several minutes I stood in the window, facing it, my head in a whirl. Léontine was right, I thought. Such a past as mine could never ​be kept a secret. It was bound to become known, and then what would be said of Edith for harbouring a criminal—a low grade of criminal: burglar, sneak-thief, pickpocket? No doubt the story would reach Kharkoff. Léontine herself might tell him, and he would remember how I had tried to relieve him of his winnings that day at the races, when he had caught me and got me deported to Cayenne. I was a marked man. My picture was in the French Rogue's Gallery and my head measurements in the Bertillon records.

      To think that Edith should fall heiress to all this! Edith, that angel of a woman. The very thought of her sent a glow through me. Angel she might be, and as such far above all earthly shame and suffering. But she was a woman, too—and such a woman. My heart was full of her, and my mind too; and as I stood there in the long window, staring into the dark shadows of the trees, I saw the sweet, thoughtful face with the clear, steady eyes and sensitive mouth. Such a woman was meant for love and happiness and peace of soul in which to accomplish the work of her rich gifts; not to suffer the sneers and evil criticisms of an evil world.

      Suddenly I knew why Léontine's feverish kisses had left me cold. I knew why my gratitude to John was turning slowly to a cold disgust. It had not taken long, I thought, with a sort of joyful pain.

      In a rage I turned back to the table to torture myself afresh with Léontine's letter. The girl was right. So be it, she should have her way. I would go with her to the ends of the world.

      Such a woman as Edith was not for me. ​Léontine and I were well mated; creatures of the same clay. We were of the earth, earthy. Heaven was not for my kind, and it seemed to me that if I were to go clawing after it worse things might happen, not only to me but to this sweet woman who was ready to sacrifice her own position, if need be, to help me. The Polish girl and I were of, and belonged to, the Under-World. We were destroyers; tearers down of the established order of affairs.

      So I turned and read the letter through again, and then, with a curse, I held a lighted match to one corner, and it seemed to me that with it burned all of my new-found future.

      ​

CHAPTER IV

      A BACK EDDY

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      Edith, I knew, was an early riser, and the next morning at nine I found her already at work in her studio. She was alone, for Miss Dalghren was more luxurious.

      "May I interrupt you for a few minutes talk, Edith?" I asked.

      "Of course you may," she answered, laying down her palette and giving me a quick look with her thoughtful eyes.

      So I told her of my letter from Léontine, holding back, of course, the name and identity of the writer. Edith listened with her smooth brows knit. I did not mention what Léontine had said about a thief being always a thief, because I knew in my heart that this did not apply to me. I had been a criminal, but not a weak man. Whenever I have committed a crime it has always been of my own deliberate intention and not the result of temptation. To my way of thinking the man who wants to be honest and then falls, in spite of himself, is not a thief. He is not worthy of the name of a thief. He is merely a weakling. To that class belong pilfering valets de chambre and absconding cashiers and the like. A professional thief would be ashamed to associate with that sort. He steals because he wants to, not because he can't help it. What I dwelt upon to Edith was the harm that might come to her husband ​and herself from receiving me into their household—and I put this even stronger than Léontine had done.

      When I had finished she looked at me with