A policeman suddenly turned the corner and came toward him. The first impulse was to fly; the next was to stand and deliver himself. The resolution came with shocking unexpectedness. He would give himself up! He would admit that he had killed his wife! The words of anguish were on his lips when the policeman spoke. "Is it you, Mr. Cable? How is she, sir?" Cable did not hear the man, for, as he opened his lips to cry out his own guilt, a thought formed in his brain that almost staggered him with its cunning savagery. Why not let the penalty fall on James Bansemer? She had gone out to meet him! If she had not destroyed the note, it would hang James Bansemer, and James Bansemer was worse than a murderer. But even as this remarkable thought rushed into his brain, the last words of the officer began to drive it out. "Is she going to pull through, sir?" was the next question--and he caught it vaguely. "Pull through?" he mumbled inarticulately. He leaned against a great stone rail suddenly. Everything was leaping before his eyes. "Good Lord, Mr. Cable--I--I forgot. Don't you know about it?" gasped the officer. "Know what?" asked Cable, completely dazed. "Go home at once, sir. I didn't mean to--oh, hurry, sir. Don't be worried. They say she'll be all right. Sure! She's been hurt a little, sir." "My daughter?" demanded Cable, as keen as a razor in an instant. His heart was trying to jump from his body. "Your wife, sir. Nothin' serious, sir. She was held up along here somewhere and robbed. They're sure to get the villain. She---" But Cable was off like a deer for his home, racing as though on air. Nothing else mattered now. She was alive! He could have her with him again to love as he never had loved her before. CHAPTER XVII DAVID CABLE'S DEBTS Two days passed before David Cable was permitted to see his wife. During those trying hours he lived an age of agony in suspense. She had been removed to her home late on the night of the "hold-up," as the newspapers felt justified in calling it. He did not go to his office the next day--nor the next--but haunted her door, sleepless, nervous, held close by dread. A dozen times, at least, he sought admittance to her room, but was always turned away, cursing the doctor and the nurses for their interference. His worst fear, however, was that his wife would not forgive him. Not the dread of exposure, nor his own shame or remorse--not even the punishment that the law might inflict, could be compared to the fear of what might be her life-long hatred. He grew to feel that the doctor, the nurses, the servants looked upon him with strange, unfriendly though respectful eyes. In his heart he believed that his wife had cursed him in their presence, laying bare his part in the unhappy transaction.