eradicator. Near the bottles lay a rod of glass with a curious tip,
an ink eraser made of finely spun glass threads which scraped away
the surface of the paper more delicately than any other tool that
had been devised. There were the materials for his, their
rehabilitation if they were placed in his wife's deft artist
fingers. Here was all the chemistry and artistry of forgery at hand.

"Yes," he answered eagerly, "there is a way, Constance. Together we
can do it."

There was no time for tenderness between them now. It was cold, hard
fact and they understood each other too well to stop for
endearments.

Far into the night they sat up and discussed the way in which they
would go about the crime. They practised with erasers and with brush
and water color on the protective coloring tint on some canceled
checks of his own. Carlton must get a check of a firm in town, a
check that bore a genuine signature. In it they would make such
trifling changes in the body as would attract no attention in
passing, yet would yield a substantial sum toward wiping out
Carlton's unfortunate deficit.

Late as he had worked the night before, nervous and shaky as he felt
after the sleepless hours of planning their new life, Carlton was
the first at the office in the morning. His hand trembled as he ran
through the huge batch of mail already left at the first delivery.
He paused as he came to one letter with the name "W. J. REYNOLDS
CO." on it.