tunnel walls without. Station after station was passed. Jimmie Dale's
hand, resting on the window sill, was so tightly clenched that it seemed
the skin must crack across the knuckles.

But he was smiling when he left the subway--only it was that same
merciless smile once more. It was not alone the mere act of robbery
that fanned his anger to a white heat. Again and again, he was picturing
in his mind that fine old gray-haired couple; again and again he saw the
old colonel bend and lift that sweet face to his, and saw them look into
each other's eyes. There was something holy, something reverent in that
love which the years had ripened and mellowed with tenderness; something
that was profound, that made of this night's work a sacrilege in
touching them--and that poor jewel, clung to all too obviously through
adversity for its past associations, was probably the last real thing of
intrinsic value they possessed!

"I am not sure," muttered Jimmie Dale--he was fingering the automatic in
his pocket, "I am not sure that I can trust myself to-night!"

Ten minutes' walk from the subway brought him before a dingy and
dilapidated three-story tenement on the East Side. The Nest, they called
it in the underworld; and worthily so, for its roof sheltered more of
the cheaper and petty class of criminals probably than any other single
dwelling in New York--the steerers, the hangers-on, the stalls, those of
the lesser breed of vultures, and the more vicious therefore, who at
best made but a precarious livelihood from their iniquitous pursuits.

One of Jimmie Dale's shoulders was hunched forward, giving a crude and
ill-fitting set to his fashionably tailored, Fifth Avenue coat; he
staggered slightly, and the flap of his collar protruded, while his tie,