"My good friend--for you really _have_ been a good friend to me, the best I ever had in all the world--my good friend, let us for only just this one minute speak of the times that lie behind.

You know what redeemed me--a woman's eyes, a woman's rose-white soul! I said, did I not, that I wanted to win her, wanted to be worthy of her, wanted to climb up and stand with her in the light?
You remember that, do you not, Mr.Narkom ?" "Yes, I remember.

But, my dear fellow, why speak of your 'vanishing cracksman' days when you have so utterly put them behind you, and since lived a life beyond reproach?
Whatever you did in those times you have amply atoned for.

And what can that have to do with your impoverished state ?" "It has everything to do with it.

I said I would be worthy of that one dear woman, and--I can never be, Mr.Narkom, until I have made restitution; until I can offer her a clean hand as well as a clean life.
I can't restore the actual things that the 'vanishing cracksman' stole; for they are gone beyond recall, but--I can, at least, restore the value of them, and--that I have been secretly doing for a long time." "Man alive! God bless my soul! Cleek, my dear fellow, do you mean to tell me that all the rewards, all the money you have earned--" "Has gone to the people from whom I stole things in the wretched old days that lie behind me," he finished very gently.