out her
hands with a tender gesture of appeal. The affair had gone beyond the
preservation of a few trees. It had become the question of an ideal.
Gradually, in spite of herself, the conviction was forcing itself upon
her that the man she had loved was no different from the rest; that the
greed of the dollar had corrupted him too. By the mere yielding to her
wishes, she wanted to prove the suspicion wrong.

Now the strange part of the whole situation was, that in two words
Thorpe could have cleared it. If he had explained that he needed the ten
thousand dollars to help pay a note given to save from ruin a foolish
friend, he would have supplied to the affair just the higher motive
the girl's clear spirituality demanded. Then she would have shared
enthusiastically in the sacrifice, and been the more loving and
repentant from her momentary doubt. All she needed was that the man
should prove himself actuated by a noble, instead of a sordid, motive.
The young man did not say the two words, because in all honesty he
thought them unimportant. It seemed to him quite natural that he should
go on Wallace Carpenter's note. That fact altered not a bit the
main necessity of success. It was a man's duty to make the best of
himself,--it was Thorpe's duty to prove himself supremely efficient in
his chosen calling; the mere coincidence that his partner's troubles
worked along the same lines meant nothing to the logic of the situation.
In stating baldly that he needed the money to assure the firm's
existence, he imagined he had adduced the strongest possible reason
for his attitude. If the girl was not influenced by that, the case was
hopeless.

It was the difference of training rather than the difference of ideas.
Both clung to unselfishness as the highest reason for human action; but
each expressed the thought in a manner incomprehensible to the other.

"I cannot, Hilda," he answered steadily.

"You sell me for ten thousand dollars! I cannot believe it! Harry!
Harry! Must I put it to you as a choice? Don't you love me enough to
spare me that?"

He did not reply. As long as it remained a dilemma, he would not reply.
He was in the right.

"Do you need the money more than you do me? more than you do love?"
she begged, her soul in her eyes; for she was begging also for herself.
"Think, Harry; it is the last chance!"

Once more he was face to face with a vital decision. To his surprise
he discovered in his mind no doubt as to what