detective.

"Well, sir, I am afraid your friend has turned rascal, and has run
away."

"What do you mean?" sharply asked Everman. "Surely, you have no
reference to my friend, Newton Edwards?"

"Yes, I mean him exactly. He is a damned thief, that's what he is; and
he has broken his wife's heart!"

This was enough for Everman; and in a short time he had learned all that
the honest carpenter could tell him. On the evening before, it appeared,
Mrs. Edwards had received a letter from her husband, the contents of
which had made her frantic with grief, and to-day she was unable to
leave her bed. In this letter he had informed her that he had been
connected with the robbery of the bank at Geneva, and that he had
succeeded in eluding all pursuit, and was now hiding in some obscure
place in the state of New York.

"This is all I know about it," added Nelson, "and I suppose I ought not
to tell this; but when a man turns out a damned rogue like that, honest
people cannot afford to shield or uphold him in his rascality."

"That's my opinion, exactly," rejoined the detective, "and I am sorry,
indeed, for Edwards' wife, although I am free to confess that I have no
further sympathy for him."

"I ought not to have told you this," said Nelson, with some compunctions
of conscience at his garrulity. "And if my wife was to hear that I had