"I must gif it to him," he said, reading her face.

"Hur knows," she said with a bitter sigh of disappointment.
"But it is hur right to keep it."

His right! The word struck him. Doctor May had used the same.
He washed himself, and went out to find this man Mitchell. His
right! Why did this chance word cling to him so obstinately?
Do you hear the fierce devils whisper in his ear, as he went
slowly down the darkening street?

The evening came on, slow and calm. He seated himself at the
end of an alley leading into one of the larger streets. His
brain was clear to-night, keen, intent, mastering. It would not
start back, cowardly, from any hellish temptation, but meet it
face to face. Therefore the great temptation of his life came
to him veiled by no sophistry, but bold, defiant, owning its own
vile name, trusting to one bold blow for victory.

He did not deceive himself. Theft! That was it. At first the
word sickened him; then he grappled with it. Sitting there on
a broken cart-wheel, the fading day, the noisy groups, the
church-bells' tolling passed before him like a panorama, while
the sharp struggle went on within. This money! He took it out,
and looked at it. If he gave it back, what then? He was going
to be cool about it.

People going by to church saw only a sickly mill-boy watching
them quietly at the alley's mouth. They did not know that he