But why not be satisfied and stop while it was all right? That is the question of a wise man, but who ever knew any man who wanted to do a thing, whether he did it or not, who could not find half a hundred good reasons why he should do it. But as Christmas came near Mac began to long for home. He had repaid his father every penny of the large sum he was owing him; there had been a reconciliation by mail, and each steamer that came bore many long letters from parents and sisters, all speaking of their joy over the happy turn of events that was going to bring the absent member of the flock home within its walls again. The father's heart, long estranged, grew very tender toward his boy, and with pride he thought his eldest had thrown off the follies of his youth, and in manful strength was making ample atonements for the thoughtlessness and the wanderings of his youth. He and they were all destined to a terrible awakening. For soon the press of the world was to teem with accounts of his son's arrest and incarceration for participation in a gigantic fraud. When the blow fell it came with crushing force on that home, and a shadow deep as night settled down on the household; all joyousness and even hope itself fled when the cable bore the news that their boy had been condemned to life imprisonment in a foreign dungeon. And one by one the members of that family passed away from a world that held no more for them since their good name had been tarnished. In London the boys talked of spending Christmas at home, but the argument to stay--and it prevailed--was that since the money came in so easily and in such amounts it was a pity to run away from it. Then, again, by obtaining an enormous sum and putting it in a place of absolute security, the bank would be glad to compromise the matter in consideration of receiving a million or two back again. So they spent a pretty merry and an exceedingly expensive Christmas in London, but later in February they determined to pack up and leave. Everything smiled upon them. The gold and bonds they had, meant fortunes for all. I was away in tropic islands leading an idle life with my bride amid the cocoanut and palm trees. Mac and George had never appeared in the transaction, and as for Noyes, not a soul in all America knew he was in Europe, and in all Europe only three or four people had seen him, and knew him as representing Warren. The business was finished. All three laden with money were going to leave England, leaving the bank to slumber on for weeks until the first bills became due before there could be a discovery. By that time the cash would have been safely stowed, and how or where or to whom could anything be traced?