A sob of ready sympathy came from the heart of the woman.
“And his poor mother?” she asked. “Where is she?”
“She soon followed—she seemed to think the little fellow would need her over there,” he replied in a tear-choked voice.
Half ashamed, he ran his sleeve across his eyes to remove the moisture there. The woman’s tears splashed on the quietly sleeping infant in her lap.
Both were startled by the clamorous ringing of the doorbell.
“The doctor!” cried the man, suddenly brought to a realization of his position.
The woman looked at him, and for the first time she really saw him; for the first time the strangeness of an unknown man in the house in the middle of the night was apparent to her. From his face her glance wandered to the chair where the burglar had thrown his mask and tools.
“Yes,” he said, answering her look, “I’m a burglar. I heard your husband was out of town, and I came to rob you. You can call the police, now.”
“No,” the woman interrupted. “Go into the next room and wait until the doctor leaves. I want to help you to a better way of living than this, if I can.”
After the doctor had departed the woman went into the next room. The burglar was not there. Going downstairs she found the drawers ransacked and all her valuables gone. On the table was a scrap of paper. On it was written: