again in tones of sadness. "The public mind is a strange consciousness. If it once gets a view of a man through the smoked glasses of prejudice, it seldom consents to look at him any other way. Remove to-morrow every vestige of evidence against Brother Hampstead, and, mark my words! the fickle public will begin to discover or invent new reasons why, once having hurled its idol down, it will not put him up again."
"You take it too seriously, mother," suggested Rollie half-heartedly, after a moment of silence.
"No, I do not," Mrs. Burbeck replied, shaking her head gravely. "The worst of it is the man's absolute silence. If he would only say something. There must be some sort of explanation. If he took the diamonds, there must have been some laudable reason. This morning there were literally tens of thousands of people hoping for such an explanation and ready to give to him the benefit of every doubt. There are fewer such to-night. There will be fewer still to-morrow.
"If somebody else stole them, and Brother Hampstead, to protect the thief, planned to hold them temporarily while immunity was gained for the coward, he must see now that he made a terrible mistake, that for once he has carried his extravagant leniency entirely too far. If this theory is correct, the thief must have fled beyond the very reach of the newspapers, or be insane, or a drug fiend, or something like that. I cannot conceive of any human being so base, or in a position so delicate that he would not instantly make a public confession to spare his benefactor."
Rollie had turned and was looking straight at his mother, almost reproachfully, certainly protestingly, at the torture she was causing him. She saw this strange look and stopped.
"Oh, my boy," she exclaimed. "You are so sympa-
