was always there--behind him, or before, or on either side.
There had always been the shadowed corner, the dark place into
which he dared not look, but from which something seemed always
to be watching him--and Paul had done things that were not pretty
to watch, he knew.

But now he had a curious sense of relief, as though he had
at last thrown down the gauntlet to the thing in the corner.

Yet it was but a day since he had been sulking in the
traces; but yesterday afternoon that he had been sent to the bank
with Denny & Carson's deposit, as usual--but this time he was
instructed to leave the book to be balanced. There was above two
thousand dollars in checks, and nearly a thousand in the bank
notes which he had taken from the book and quietly transferred to
his pocket. At the bank he had made out a new deposit slip. His
nerves had been steady enough to permit of his returning to the
office, where he had finished his work and asked for a full day's
holiday tomorrow, Saturday, giving a perfectly reasonable
pretext. The bankbook, be knew, would not be returned before
Monday or Tuesday, and his father would be out of town for the
next week. From the time he slipped the bank notes into his
pocket until he boarded the night train for New York, he
had not known a moment's hesitation. It was not the first time
Paul had steered through treacherous waters.

How astonishingly easy it had all been; here he was, the
thing done; and this time there would be no awakening, no figure
at the top of the stairs. He watched the snowflakes whirling by
his window until he fell asleep.