John Perriton was unmistakably a good fellow. He was never one to spoil a party with a long face and an absence of joviality, nor was he at all likely to break up any sort of festivity by leaving early. A few people shook their heads gravely, and said that he was hitting the pace entirely too hard and that he would certainly kill himself if he didn’t cut down on his liquor, but most of the world accepted him cordially on his own estimation as a man’s man. Perriton loved Mary Wales almost as much as he loved himself, which is to say that he was not ready to settle down yet for her sake. Mary’s brother, Nelson, was a weak, helpless individual, who was always in hot water. On the night of the masked ball, he came to Perriton, and asked him for help in one or two matters. He needed money very badly. To make matters worse, he had forged his sister’s name to a check. The long and the short of the whole business was that Nelson must have $75,000 by the next morning. Perriton wrote an order on his bankers for $50,000, the entire extent of his depleted fortune, and drove Nelson to the station. But Nelson was not satisfied. He had to have the other $25,000. So he slipped off the train, came home by a short cut, put on his dancing mask and attempted to take his sister’s jewels from her safe. He was surprised by the butler, and in the desperation of fear, killed the man. Immediately afterwards, Perriton arrived. Nelson, almost frenzied, begged him to put on the mask, and to pretend to be the criminal. No one would know who he was, and he would see that he got safely away. Perriton assented. His identity was discovered by Mary who, agonized at her discovery of the apparent character of the man she loved, forbade him even to think of her again, and allowed him to escape. Despite everything, Perriton kept silent, and allowing the woman he loved to think him the meanest type of criminal, went off into the night.