The golden opportunity was gone.

“Don’t say a word,” whispered the man quickly.  “We’ll surprise him.  Be very still.”

He reached his hand up and turned out the light.  He half hoped he might be mistaken, or that in the darkness they would not be seen, but no.  They all heard the footsteps on the stair.  They came down slowly, and it was evident that whoever was approaching was using every precaution not to be heard.  “Crackerjack” was in a frightful situation.  He did not know whether to jerk himself away from the two children, for the boy had clasped him around the leg and the girl still held his hand, or whether to wait.

The power of decision suddenly left him, for the steps stopped before the door.  There was a little click as a hand pressed a button on the wall and the whole room was flooded with light from the great electrolier in the centre.  Well, the game was up.  “Crackerjack” had been crouching low with the children.  He rose to his feet and looked straightly enough into the barrel of a pistol held by a tall, severe looking man in a rich silk dressing robe, who confronted him in the doorway.  Two words broke from the lips of the two men, the same words that had fallen from their lips when they met ten years before.

“John!” cried the elder man, laying the weapon on a nearby table.

“Will!” answered “Crackerjack” in the same breath.

As if to mark the eternal difference as before, the one was clothed in habiliments of wealth and luxury, the other in the rags and tatters of poverty and shame.

“Why, that isn’t Santa Claus,” instantly burst out the little girl, “that’s papa.”

“Dis is Santy Claus’s friend, papa,” said the little boy.  “We were doin’ to su’prise him.  He said be very still and we minded.”

“So this is what you have come to, John,” said the elder man, but there was an unwonted gentleness in his voice.

“I swear to God I didn’t know it was your house.  I just came in here because the window was open.”

The other pointed to the safe.

“But you were—­”

“Of course I was.  You don’t suppose I wandered in for fun, do you?  I’ve got a little girl of my own, and her name’s Helen, too; our mother’s name.”

The other brother nodded.

“She’s hungry and cold and there’s no Christmas for her or her mother.”

“Oh, Santy has been here already,” cried Master John Williams, running toward the great fireplace, having just that moment discovered the bulging stockings and piles of gifts.  His sister made a move in the same direction, for at the other corner hung her stocking and beneath it her pile, but the man’s hand unconsciously tightened upon her hand and she stopped.

“I’ll stay with you,” she said, after a moment of hesitation.  “Tell me more about your Helen.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”  He released her hand roughly.  “You musn’t touch me,” he added harshly.  “Go.”