"Don't--don't say it! It's all a mistake, which can be rectified in a moment. I've been trying to match this piece of lace for years. I got it at Malta when--when Mills and I--on our honeymoon. When I saw it there on the counter I was so delighted--I never thought--I intended taking it to the light to be sure the pattern was the same, my eyesight is so wretched--and when you spoke to me it was the first inkling I had that I had really taken it without paying! You certainly understand," she pleaded in agitation. "I have no need to steal--you must know that--oh, that I wouldn't--that--I couldn't--If you will just let me pay you--" Here now, Mag Monahan, don't you get to sneering. She was straight--right on the level, all right. You couldn't listen to that cracked little voice of hers a minute without being sure of it. I was just about to permit her graciously to pay me the money,--for my friend? the dear Bishop's sake, of course,--when a big floor-walker happened to catch sight of us. "If you'll come with me, Mrs. Van Wagenen, to a dressing-room, I'll arrange your collar for you," I said very loud. And then, in a whisper: "Of course, I understand, but the thing may look different to other people. And that big floor-walker there gets a commission from the newspapers every time he tells them--" She gave a squawk for all the world like a dried-up little hen scuttling out of a yellow dog's way, and we took the elevator to the second floor. The minute I closed the door of the little fitting-room she held out the lace to me. "I have changed my mind," she said, "and shall give you the lace back. I will not keep it. I can not--I can not bear the sight of it. It terrifies me and shocks me. I can take no pleasure in it. Besides--besides, it will be discipline for me to do without it now that I have found it after all these years. Every day I shall look at the place in my collection which it would have occupied, and I shall say to myself: 'Maria Van Wagenen, take warning. See to what terrible straits a worldly passion may bring one; what unconscious greed may do!' I shall give the money to Mills for charity and I will never--never fill that place in my collection." "What good will that do?" I asked, puzzled, while I folded the collar up into a very small package. "You mean that I ought to submit to the exposure--that I deserve the lesson and the punishment--not for stealing, but for being absorbed in worldly things. Perhaps you are right. It certainly shows that you have at some time been under Mills' spiritual care, my dear. I wonder if he would insist--whether I ought--yes, I suppose he would. Oh!" A saleswoman's head was thrust in the door. "Excuse me," she said, "I thought the room was empty." "We've just finished trying on," I said sweetly.