“Well,” he observed genially, “we all make our little mistakes.” “So you admit it was a mistake?” she said, hardly knowing what to make of this changed manner. “I’m quite sure of it,” he asserted. “_You_ are innocent, Miss Cartwright. How am I so sure of it? Because I happen to have the thief already.” “You have the thief?” Amy cried, startled out of her determination to say nothing. “Yes,” he told her nonchalantly, “I’ve arrested the man who robbed your sister. Poor devil, he has a wife and children. He swears they’ll starve, and very likely they will, but he’s guilty and to jail he goes.” “Are you sure he’s guilty?” Amy stammered. He leaned over his desk and looked at her surprised. “Why, yes,” he said slowly. “Have you any reason to think different?” “No, no!” she cried, shrinking back. “But I have,” Ethel said calmly. “I have every reason to believe he is innocent.” “_You_ have?” Taylor cried, himself perplexed at the turn things were taking. Amy looked at her sister, wondering what was coming next. “I know who stole them,” Ethel went on. “It was my maid.” “Your maid!” the deputy-surveyor cried. “Why didn’t you tell the company that? Bronson never told me about it.” “She didn’t disappear till after the claim was paid, you see,” Miss Cartwright explained. “Then I got a note from her confessing, a note written in Canada.” “Whereabouts in Canada?” he demanded. “I don’t recall it,” he was told. “You don’t? Well, what was your maid’s name then? I’d like to know that, if you can remember it for me.” “Marie Garnier was her name.” He took up a scribbling pad and inscribed the name on it. “Marie Garnier,” he muttered, and pushed the buzzer. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” “What was the good?” Miss Cartwright returned. “I was fond of Marie--she was almost one of the family--and I didn’t want to brand her as a thief. When I learned she had escaped to Canada where the law couldn’t reach her--” She was interrupted by Duncan’s entrance. “Yes, sir?” said he to his chief. Taylor handed him the leaf he had torn from the pad. “Attend to this at once,” he ordered. “Now, Miss Cartwright,” he remarked, “I’d like to ask why it was you made this admission about Marie Garnier.” “Because I do not want to see an innocent man go to prison,” she returned promptly. “Oh, I see. And did your sister know it, too?” “No,” she answered quickly. “Why hadn’t you told her?” he demanded. “Really,” said the elder Miss Cartwright with an expression of innocence, “I didn’t think it made any difference.” Taylor was obviously annoyed at such a view. “Your behavior is most extraordinary,” he commented. “You see, I know so little about law, and insurance and things like that,” she said apologetically. She did not desire to offend him. “You ought at least to have known that you owed it to the company to give them all the information in your possession,” he grumbled. “I never thought of it in that way,” she said meditating.