Two pairs of eyes met involuntarily, and the owners smiled.

"Do put him out, my dear," urged the Doctor, who had stooped to pick up the scattered sheets of his manuscript. "This is the last volume of my series, Donald. You remember I was collecting data for it when you were at the university. I had expected to publish it this spring, but it will have to be postponed now."

Donald winced. "On account of the bank failure, I suppose?"

"Well, yes. Basil advises a curtailment of all expenditure for the present. However, it may be just as well to publish in the fall. That will give me three more months on the revision."

"I hope you were not seriously involved, Doctor?"

"No, no, I imagine not," said the Doctor vaguely as he made a marginal correction on one of the sheets. "Basil and I have been so much occupied that we have scarcely had a chance to discuss the matter. He said I might possibly lose something, but that he would protect my interests. I trust you are not one of the losers?"

"No," Donald said shortly, "I lost nothing." Then after a pause during which he stared at the floor, he looked up. "Doctor, I want to consult you about something. Your standards of right and wrong seem to me a bit surer than most people's. I'm in trouble and I want your advice."

He was looking at the Doctor as he spoke, but he was acutely conscious of the slender figure that stood with her back to them before the open fire.

"You see," he said, plunging into his subject, "a week before the bank failed I found that I might need a lot of ready money before I got through with the trial. So I sold all my People's Bank stock."

"That was fortunate."

"But, Doctor! Don't you see? At the time I sold the shares they weren't worth the paper they were printed on!"

"But you were ignorant of this."

"Of course; but does that alter the fact that I took money for stock that was worthless?"

The Doctor rubbed his hands together thoughtfully. For once he was not prepared to give an immediate answer to a question concerning a moral issue.

"On the spur of the moment I should advise you to refund the money, but I do not know if such advice is wise. The fact is, neither you nor I are sufficiently versed in financial matters to know what is customary in such cases. What does your brother-in-law advise?"

"I have had no conversation with him since the bank failed. He stays in town nearly every night, and you can imagine what his days are."

"Well, I should put the matter before him, explain my scruples, and then act unquestioningly on his advice. It has been my rule in life, when my own judgment did not suffice, to consult the highest available authority upon that given subject and abide by it. Basil Sequin, in spite of this unfortunate failure, is undoubtedly our ablest financier. I can only bid you do as I have done; leave everything entirely to him."

"I shouldn't!" cried Miss Lady, wheeling about with a return of her old, childlike, impetuous manner; "I shouldn't leave it to anybody. I'd buy back the stock, every share of it. I wouldn't keep money for which I'd given nothing! You ought to see Miss Ferney Foster! She bought bank stock only last week; gave all the money she'd made on her pickles for ten years, and when she found the bank had failed, she went out of her head. I've been there to-day and she didn't know me."

"Who sold her the stock?"

"A broker named Gilson."

"It was my stock," Donald cried "Of course she's got to be paid back! And all the rest of them. I'll buy back every share of it, if it takes my last dollar!"

"Will it take all you have?" Miss Lady scanned his face anxiously.

"Yes, and more. I made an investment with some of the money before I knew the bank was in trouble; then there's the double liability law. It wouldn't matter so much if it weren't for the trial."

"Your sister, of course, will be ready to help you. Or has she, too, lost?"

"No," said Donald, his lips tightening, "she hasn't lost. She's had no stock in the bank for a year. But I shan't call upon her."

"Because she opposed your course so violently? Oh, I see. A point of honor on which I quite agree with you. But you are not going under, Donald. We will see to that. I am not a wealthy man, as you know. There have been times recently when the future looked very dark. But this little lady has steered us into calmer waters. If you should, in the course of the next few months, be in need of a reasonable sum, I am happy to say we will be in a position to accommodate you."

Donald gripped his hand. "I shan't call on you, Doctor. But once I'm through with this accursed trial, I'll try to justify your belief in me."

The tall clock in the hall gave a preliminary wheeze, then hiccoughed nine times violently. The Doctor carefully arranged his voluminous papers in a shabby, brown portfolio, and rose with an effort.

"You will excuse me now if I bid you good night? My physician has become rather arbitrary in regulating my hours. Keep up your courage, my boy; that courage that 'scorns to bend to mean devices for a sordid end.' I admire the course you have taken, I admire you. Good night to you both."

They watched him go, with his tall, stooped figure, and his fine, serious eyes that saw life only through the stultifying medium of books. Then they looked at each other.

"I'll call Connie," Miss Lady said, moving to the door.

"Just a minute, please."

She came back reluctantly, and stood with her hands clasped on the back of a chair, breathing quickly.

"Do you remember," Donald asked, standing in front of her and speaking in a low, tense voice, "the last time we stood in this room, and the promises I made you? Well, I've kept them. I've fought like the devil,--You don't know what it means, you can't know. But I've kept them. Now I want to tell you that I've got to break over. You are right about the bank-stock money. It's not mine. I'll pay it back to- morrow. But more money has to come from somewhere to carry on the trial. There's only one chance I can think of. I've got to enter Lickety Split for the Derby."

"No, you haven't! There are other ways. You must go to work."

"Work!" he broke out fiercely. "Haven't I been trying to get a position ever since I came home? Who wants to tie up to me until this cursed case is decided? I have been trying to write, but my things come back faster than I can send them out. What am I good for? A game at billiards, _sixty_ miles an hour in a motor car, a lark with any idler that happens in the club. Bah! I'm sick of having people patronize me because I am not in the game, because I've never earned a penny, except by gambling, in my life!"

"But that's all behind you, Don! You've got the rest of your life to live differently. When the case is decided--"

"Yes, and suppose it goes against me? It did before, it may again. Talk about justice and truth! I've failed to find them. I've had enough of this glorious thing called life; I'm ready to quit."

"You can't quit, Don!" She said it softly, with the firelight flushing her eager, solicitous face. "Don't you suppose we all want to quit sometimes? We've just got to take a fresh grip on our courage and fight it out. I'm in trouble myself, to-night, Don. Will you help me?"

His eyes flew to hers as he half knelt on the chair before her.

"I've sold Thornwood," she went on, her lips trembling. "I can hardly speak of it, even yet. I feel like a traitor to Daddy, to all the Carseys who ever lived here, to myself! You know what the place means to me. I believe I should die if I ever saw any one else living here! I don't know who bought it, I don't want to know. All I know is that I've been perfectly wretched every hour since I signed the paper, until just now when the Doctor offered to lend you the money. Oh! Don, if I thought selling Thornwood meant that we could help clear your name, there'd never be another instant of regret! You'll let us help you?"

He put up his hand as if to ward off a blow: "Don't," he said harshly. "I can't take your help. I can't even take your friendship, or the Doctor's. Don't you see that I'm going through hell? Don't you know that I love you?"

The color left her face, and her eyes wavered a moment, then steadied.

"You must never say that again, Don! You must try not to think of it. I'll forgive you because I want you to forgive me for something. You know the letter you sent me from San Francisco? I burned it, unopened, right there where you are standing now. It was a cowardly thing to do, even though I thought you were in the wrong. If I had known the truth I never would have kept silent all those months. It was a great wrong I did you, Don; can you forgive me?"

He studied her face, as if he would by sheer intensity probe those luminous eyes that said everything and nothing. At last his head dropped.

"I was a fool ever to think you cared," he said brokenly; "I knew I wasn't good enough for you. I knew it from the first, but I tried. Shall I keep on trying for your sake?"

"No, Don, not for mine. For your own, and for the sake of the girl you'll some day make your wife. But I want you to remember that I shall feel responsible for whatever happens to you. If you give up the fight and go back to the old life, I shall know it was because I failed you; if you succeed, as I believe you will, I shall be happy