She sees the door of her husband's office ajar, she pushes it open, and there, by the sudden flash of a hastily struck match she realizes in a moment that a thief stands before the open safe, and in that thief she has already recognized her son.

At that very moment she hears the watchman's step approaching the partition.

There is no time to warn her son; she does not know the glass door is locked; James Fairbairn may switch on the electric light and see the young man in the very act of robbing his employers' safe.
"One thing alone can reassure the watchman.

One person alone had the right to be there at that hour of the night, and without hesitation she pronounces her husband's name.
"Mind you, I firmly believe that at the time the poor woman only wished to gain time, that she had every hope that her son had not yet had the opportunity to lay so heavy a guilt upon his conscience.
"What passed between mother and son we shall never know, but this much we do know, that the young villain made off with his booty, and trusted that his mother would never betray him.

Poor woman! what a night of it she must have spent; but she was clever and far-seeing.