like to
see it--now."

"I'll be back before four," he told her, "a little late, but I promised
one of our young fellows an appointment."

She pouted as she had done in her courtship days.

"A young man!"

"I can't disappoint him, sweetheart. Youngsters feel those things. He
wants more money, and I really believe he's worth it."

As he entered his private room something struck him disagreeably. He
glanced about--a sea-coal fire burned in the tiny English grate. He
scowled and touched a bell. Asked to explain, the page confessed that
he had promised Mrs. Weldon to put a fire there whenever any dampness
should threaten, and that to-day being noticeably damp he had kept his
word. The president nodded and the lad made his escape.

In another moment a slender young man entered, with a discreet knock,
and faced him. He seemed unaccountably excited--even blustering, for a
young man in his position.

The president took out his watch and counted the ticks to quiet his
irritation. We must be kind to the young ones--promotion means so much
to them.

"Let us look at all this a little quietly," he said, softened already,
"believe me, I want to satisfy every reasonable claim. It is to my
interest----"

He caught his breath. Something in the young man's attitude as he
faced him, level eyed, hands between his knees, a contemptuous smile on
his hard young face, smote him to the very marrow.

"What is he thinking of me?" flashed through him. The answer came like
the shot from a cannon.

"Is it to your interest to satisfy every reasonable claim on the ten
thousand pounds you borrowed from the bank last month, Mr. Weldon?"

The soft lines faded from his face and two grey streaks grew around his
mouth. The ticking of the watch in his hand rose and swelled and
filled the room--_one, two! one, two! one, two!_

So this was the end. Never a night of honest sleep again. Never a
free swell of the chest. To go down in sight of land, to drop just
outside the fort! _All over! All over! All over!_

The young man was still talking, quickly, definitely enough, but it
grew blurred as it reached his brain. He found his tongue, dry and
stiff in his mouth, asking questions mechanically?

Did any one know of this?

No, only the young man. He was not inclined to be rapacious. He had
an interest in a bank in Gibraltar, and two thousand pounds would
establish him there. He had thought it might be worth the president's