which held like a nail the record of his infamy.

Billy drew himself back with a jerk of recovery, and said with bravado,
but with fear in look and motion: "Don't stare like that. The thing's
done, and you can't undo it, and that's all there is about it." Charley
had been staring at the youth-staring and not seeing him really, but
seeing his wife and watching her lips say again: "You are ruining Billy!"
He was not sober, but his mind was alert, his eccentric soul was getting
kaleidoscopic glances at strange facts of life as they rushed past his
mind into a painful red obscurity.

"Oh yes, it can be undone, and it's not all there is about it!" he
answered quietly.

He got up suddenly, went to the door, locked it, put the key in his
pocket, and, coming back, sat down again beside the table.

Billy watched him with shrewd, hunted eyes. What did Charley mean to do?
To give him in charge? To send him to jail? To shut him out from the
world where he had enjoyed himself so much for years and years? Never to
go forth free among his fellows! Never to play the gallant with all the
pretty girls he knew! Never to have any sports, or games, or tobacco, or
good meals, or canoeing in summer, or tobogganing in winter, or moose-
hunting, or any sort of philandering!

The thoughts that filled his mind now were not those of regret for his
crime, but the fears of the materialist and sentimentalist, who revolted
at punishment and all the shame and deprivation it would involve.

"What did you do with the money?" said Charley, after a minute's