she stopped him.

"No! no! wait! It's a large sum--I haven't it with me," she stammered,
thoroughly beaten.

"Ye kin get it."

"Give me time!" she implored. "Look! I'll give you a hundred down
now,--all I have here,--the rest another time!" She nervously opened a
drawer of her desk and taking out a buckskin bag of gold thrust it in
his hand. "There! go away now!" She lifted her thin hands despairingly
to her head. "Go! do!"

The man seemed struck by her manner. "I don't want to be hard on
a woman," he said slowly. "I'll go now and come back again at nine
to-night. You can git the money, or what's as good, a check to bearer,
by then. And ef ye'll take my advice, you won't ask no advice from
others, ef you want to keep your secret. Just now it's safe with me; I'm
a square man, ef I seem to be a hard one." He made a gesture as if to
take her hand, but as she drew shrinkingly away, he changed it to an
awkward bow, and the next moment was gone.

She started to her feet, but the unwonted strain upon her nerves and
frail body had been greater than she knew. She made a step forward, felt
the room whirl round her and then seem to collapse beneath her feet,
and, clutching at her chair, sank back into it, fainting.

How long she lay there she never knew. She was at last conscious of some
one bending over her, and a voice--the voice of Mr. Brooks--in her ear,
saying, "I beg your pardon; you seem ill. Shall I call some one?"

"No!" she gasped, quickly recovering herself with an effort, and staring
round her. "Where is--when did you come in?"

"Only this moment. I was leaving tonight, sooner than I expected, and
thought I'd say good-by. They told me that you had been engaged with a
stranger, but he had just gone. I beg your pardon--I see you are ill. I
won't detain you any longer."

"No! no! don't go! I am better--better," she said feverishly. As she
glanced at his strong and sympathetic face a wild idea seized her. He
was a stranger here, an alien to these people, like herself. The advice
that she dare not seek from others, from her half-estranged religious
friends, from even her superintendent and his wife, dare she ask from
him? Perhaps he saw this frightened doubt, this imploring appeal, in her
eyes, for he said gently, "Is it anything I can do for you?"

"Yes," she said, with the sudden desperation of weakness; "I want you to
keep a secret."

"Yours?--yes!" he said promptly.

Whereat poor Mrs. Wade instantly burst