"There is no need to thank me. I am glad I was at hand when you needed me."
"What is your name?"
"Luke Walton."
"Mine is Ambrose Kean. You must think I am a fool,"
"I think," said Luke, gently, "that you have some cause of unhappiness."
"You are right there. I have been unfortunate, but I am also an offender against the law, and it was the fear of exposure and arrest that made me take the step I did. I thought I was ready to die, but when I found myself in the water life seemed dearer than it had before, and I tried to escape. Thanks to you, I am alive, but now I almost wish that I had succeeded. I don't know how to face what is before me."
"Would you mind telling me what it is?"
"No; I need someone to confide in, and you deserve my confidence. Let me tell you, then, that I am employed in an office on Dearborn Street. My pay is small, twelve dollars a week, but it would be enough to support me if I had only myself to look out for. But I have a mother in Milwaukee, and I have been in the habit of sending her four dollars a week. That left me only eight dollars, which I found it hard to live on, and there was nothing left for clothes."
"I can easily believe that," said Luke.
"I struggled along, however, as best I might, but last week I received a letter from my mother saying that she was sick. Of course her expenses were increased, and she wrote to know if I could send her a little extra money. I have been living so close up to my income that I absolutely had less than a dollar in my pocket. Unfortunately, temptation came at a time when I was least prepared to resist it. One of our customers from the country came in when I was alone, and paid me fifty dollars in bills, for which I gave him a receipt. No one saw the payment made. It flashed upon me that this sum would make my mother comfortable even if her sickness lasted a considerable time. Without taking time to think, I went to an express office, and forwarded to her a package containing the bills. It started yesterday, and by this time is in my mother's hands. You see the situation I am placed in. The one who paid the money may come to the office at any time and reveal my guilt."