The Closing Net. Henry Cottrell Rowland

husband and laughed.

      "You are like as two peas," she said. "I don't wonder that you got a dreadful start when you saw John."

      She gave me her hand and I took it in a sort of daze. Then I looked at the girl who was posing. Edith smiled.

      ​"Miss Dalghren is one of our family, Frank," she said. "She was here that night and knows the whole story. You are with your own people, Frank, so you are not to feel uncomfortable. Do you know what a Bishop of London is said to have once remarked when he watched a man being led to the gallows? 'There, but for the grace of God, goes myself.' The grace of God has brought you to us, Frank, and all of the old dead past has got to bury its dead." Her lovely, sensitive mouth curved in the sweetest little smile, which drew one corner lower than the other, and her big eyes grew dark and deep, suddenly, and seemed to look through mine to see what was behind them. "The interment is already going on, Frank—but I don't see any mourners. Now, you men must run out and let me make the most of my light. My picture is 'way behind." She looked at John. "Show Frank his room," she said, "and see that he has everything that he needs. You may come back for tea, at five, if you like."

      I got out of the studio like a man in a dream. John closed the door, then looked at me and laughed.

      "How do you feel about it now, old chap?" he asked.

      "I feel," said I, in a shaky sort of voice, "a good deal as I imagine Jeanne d'Arc may have felt when the angel brought her the banner." I spun around and stared at him. "What did you ever do to deserve a wife like that?"

      John laughed. "Nothing," says he, "and I don't deserve her."

      He led the way to the house and I followed, still ​rather dazed. You see, the reception I'd had was so different from what I expected. It was so cordial and natural, even while not ignoring the real state of affairs. There was none of the fuss I'd dreaded being made over the reformed criminal—especially when it was a case of reform or pencil servitude; and on the other hand there was no silly pretence that I was just like the rest of their sort. The sentimental mush that is served out to the ex-thief by a certain class of people is almost enough to keep the self-respecting crook from turning honest, unless he's hard up against it; but there was nothing of that sort here. Some folks seem to think that a criminal is an entirely different sort of human being, but my experience in the Under-World had shown that there's a lot of honesty in most crooks, just the same as there's a lot of crookedness in many honest folk, and that the difference is principally in circumstance. But even then, you do find once in a great while what seems to be the unmixed bad, just as there is the unmixed good. This yarn is a story of both, and a few between.

      John took me to his smoking-room and we sat down and each lighted a cigarette. I noticed his furniture and pictures, and he seemed a bit surprised to find that I understood periods and art. He touched the bell and ordered whisky and soda. When it came I declined, never touching anything except a little wine with meals.

      "You don't drink?" he asked, pouring himself out a pretty stiff one.

      "Never hard stuff," I answered. "That was too risky in my old trade."

      ​"It's always risky in any trade," said he, "and still riskier when you haven't any trade at all." And his face darkened a little. He set down his half-emptied glass and looked at me curiously.

      "Now that you've met Edith," said he, "don't you see what I meant when I said that she was not like most women?"

      "Yes; I see."

      "And you don't feel the same way about taking help from her?"

      "No," said I; "I'd take help from her just as I'd take it from God."

      He raised his eyebrows a little.

      "You believe in God?" he asked.

      "Most people who carry their lives in their hands believe in God," I answered. "But the trouble is, my kind don't feel as if they had any great reason for loving Him."

      John nodded, took another swallow, then gave me a quick, curious look.

      "Did you notice the girl who was posing?" he asked.

      "Yes. She is very beautiful."

      "She is a Miss Dalghren," said John. "Her father was a promoter and made a big fortune in different schemes; mines principally. Then he took to stock gambling and lost it all and died bankrupt—just as our father did. All that she got after the smash were those pearls she was wearing, a magnificent string that she had from her mother. She gives music lessons here in Paris."

      "Singing?"

      ​

      ROSALIE

      ​ ​"Yes, and the piano. She plays the harp very well, also."

      We talked for a while and then John took me to see his library. I noticed that he helped him self to another drink before leaving the room. There was nothing in this, of course, but his manner of doing it was queer; quick and furtive, as if he wanted to gulp it down before anybody came in. We spent the rest of the hour looking at his old volumes, and he was surprised to see that I knew books, too. Then, says John:

      "Come on, Frank. It's five. We can go back to the studio now."

      Edith had finished her painting and was sitting on the divan talking with Miss Dalghren. The old maître d'hòtel brought in the tea things and a decanter of whisky. Miss Dalghren poured the tea.

      "How do you like it?" she asked me.

      "Perhaps Frank would rather have whisky," said Edith.

      "No," I answered, "I prefer the tea."

      She handed me a cup and I stirred it slowly. Then I felt Edith's eyes on me and looked up. She gave her crooked little smile.

      "Really, Frank," she said, "you and John are as like as you can be."

      "On the outside, perhaps," I answered.

      Her deep grey eyes looked into mine as if she was trying to see all that was inside. Usually, when a person goes prospecting in my thoughts this way I pull the dead-light over my "lanterns of the soul." But there was something here that went through the shutter like radium. Perhaps it was ​because everybody else had always looked me in the eyes hunting for something bad, while Edith seemed to be looking not for, but at, something that was good. It must have been that, for her sweet mouth seemed to soften and she smiled again.

      "You are all right inside," she said, quietly. "Your education has been wrong, that's all."

      "I was educated for a thief," I answered, in the same tone; "and so far as the education went I was always considered a credit to it."

      Perhaps it wasn't a nice thing to say, but for some reason I wanted to justify myself. I wanted her to know how I came to belong to the Under-World. Perhaps she understood and wished me to understand that no explanation was necessary, for she said:

      "Whatever you set yourself to do you will do strongly, Frank, and without fear. Weakness will never be your fault. How old are you, Frank?"

      "Thirty-two," I told her.

      "Six years younger than John," she said, "but you look to be the same age."

      "Nobody ever discovered the fountain of youth at Cayenne," said I; "a year there is worth five anywhere else."

      Miss Dalghren had not said a word, but I felt her watching me closely. She was a beautiful girl, of the big, Diana sort, with a rather square face and blazing, blue eyes; the sort of woman that looks as if she was meant to be the mother of good fighting men.

      "Why did you enter this house?" she said.

      ​I told them the story of how Jeff had taken me to Léontine's swell supper party—leaving out names and places, of course—and how I had