Why should he not enter this only road? He had no single friend who would be pained. He had no faintest hope of a future. All that could be lost was lost. The thief's trade promised him the necessities of life. He had offered to pay the world in work for these necessities, but the world had refused his payment. What could he do, then, but take them?--Besides, would it not be just treatment of the world--of the world that had destroyed him, of the world that cared more for dollars than for souls--if some of its all-precious wealth were taken from it? He looked up; his face was tight-set, vindictive; his eyes glittered. Kate's gaze was fixed upon him, waiting. "It's time we were starting," she said. "It's almost two." He breathed deeply, almost convulsively. "Come on," he said. She reached across and seized his hand. "I knew you'd come in!" she cried triumphantly. "We'll turn a lot of tricks together, you and me!" He gripped her hand so hard that she gave a little gasp, but he did not answer. For a minute or more they looked silently into each other's face. "Come, we must go," she said.... "You have your diagram of the house?" "No. I tore it up." She drew some sheets from the front of her flannel waist. "Here's another, then. You may need it." From beneath the red-and-green sofa she took a suit-case, which she threw open. In it were a full set of burglar's tools. "We really don't need 'em, for I've got keys to almost everything. But we'll take 'em along and twist the locks a bit, so they'll never suspect the job may have been done by someone who'd been in the inside--that is, by me. We'll bring the swag back in the suit-case." She looked at David, as at a superior artist, for commendation of her plan; but he silently regarded the strange instruments in the bag. She slipped on a pair of rubbers, fastened on a little hat, and had David help her into a short jacket which had large pockets in the lining. David drew on his overcoat, picked up the suit-case, and together they crept down the black stairways and out into the street. She chattered softly all the while, as though fearing David, if left to his own thoughts, might withdraw from the adventure. Shortly before three o'clock Kate paused, in one of the Seventies near Fifth Avenue, before a flight of broad steps leading up to a broad stoop and a broad entrance. "Here we are," she whispered. They searched the street in both directions with quick glances. Not a soul was in sight. Then they slipped to the shadowed servants' entrance beneath the stoop, and in less than a minute Kate had unlocked a door of iron grating and a second door of wood, and they were standing in a dark hallway. She opened the grip, handed David a lantern, took one for herself, tied a handkerchief over his face so that all below the eyes was hidden, and masked herself likewise. Then with a jimmy and a wrench she hurried away.