———— An hour or so later, Teddy reached home. He arrived breathless, because he had run nearly all the way from the street-car. In the empty spaces of Indiana Avenue he felt himself conspicuous. He knew it was fancy, that no hint of his folly could have come to this quiet suburb, and that his theft could not possibly be discovered as yet, even by those most concerned. But he was not used to a guilty conscience. Already in imagination he saw himself tried, sentenced, and serving a long sentence at Bitterwell, of which he had once seen the grim gray walls. "God! I’d shoot myself first!" was his comment to himself, as he hurried past the trim grassplots where care-free men in shirt sleeves were watering their bits of lawn. It was Pansy who first knew that something was amiss. At sound of his hand on the door knob she had come scampering, with little silvery yelps, and had suddenly been checked by the atmosphere he threw out. Pansy knew what wrongdoing was; she knew the pangs of remorse. She had once run away from being shut up in the coalbin, her fate when the family went to the movies, and had been lost for half a day. The agony of being adrift and the joy of seeing Gussie come whistling and calling down the Palisade Walk formed the great central escapade in Pansy’s memory. For days afterward, whenever the family spoke of it, she would stand with forepaws planted apart, and head hanging dejectedly, aware that no terms could be scathing enough fully to cover her guilt. And here was Teddy in the same state of mind. Pansy had learned that the great race could suffer; but she hadn’t supposed that it could get into scrapes like herself. All she could do on second thoughts was to creep forward timidly, raise herself on her hind legs, with her paws against his shin, and tell him that whatever the trouble was she had been through it all. He paid her no attention because, as he looked into the living room, Gladys was seated at a table, crying, her hands covering her face. At the same time Gussie was peacocking up and down the room, saying things to her little sister that were apparently not comforting. Now that Gussie, at Madame Corinne’s request, had "put up" her hair, her great beauty was apparent. Her face had not the guileless purity of Jennie’s, but it had more intellectual vigor and much more fire. Gladys was Teddy’s pet, as she was her father’s. Of the three girls, she was the plain one, a little red-haired, snub-nosed thing, with some resemblance to Pansy, and a heart of gold. Teddy went over and laid his hand on her fiery crown. "Say, poor little kiddie, what’s the matter?" "It’s my feet," Gladys moaned.