ain protection, lifting her a little away from the outwardly crude and
provincial life around her.

When Rawley spoke, it was with quiet deliberation, and even gentleness. "I
haven't been a saint, and she knows it, as you say, Dan; but the law is on
my side as yet, it isn't on yours. There's the difference."

"You used to gamble yourself; you were pretty tough, and you oughtn't to
walk up my back with hobnailed boots."

"Yes, I gambled, Dan, and I drank, and I raised a dust out here. My record
was writ pretty big. But I didn't lay my hands on the ark of the social
covenant, whose inscription is, _Thou shalt not steal_; and that's why I'm
poor but proud, and no one's watching for me round the corner, same as
you."

Welldon's half-defiant petulance disappeared. "What's done can't be
undone." Then, with a sudden burst of anguish, "Oh, get me out of this
somehow!"

"How? I've got no money. By speaking to your sister?"

The other was silent.

"Shall I do it?" Rawley peered anxiously into the other's face, and he
knew that there was no real security against the shameful trouble being
laid bare to her.

"I want a chance to start straight again."

The voice was fluttered, almost whining; it carried no conviction; but the
words had in them a reminder of words that Rawley himself had said to
Diana Welldon but a few months ago, and a new spirit stirred in him. He
stepped forward and, gripping Dan's shoulder with a hand of steel, said,
fiercely:

"No, Dan. I'd rather take you to her in your coffin. She's never known
you, never seen what most of us have seen, that all you have--or nearly
all--is your lovely looks and what they call a kind heart. There's only
you two in your family, and she's got to live with you--awhile, anyhow.
She couldn't stand this business. She mustn't stand it. She's had enough
to put up with in me; but at the worst she could pass me by on the other
side, and there would be an end. It would have been said that Flood Rawley
had got his deserts. It's different with you." His voice changed,
softened. "Dan, I made a pledge to her that I'd never play cards again for
money while I lived, and it wasn't a thing to take on without some
cogitation. But I cogitated, and took it on, and started life over
again--me! Began practising law again--barrister, solicitor, notary
public--at forty. And at last I've got my chance in a big case against the
Canadian Pacific. It'll make me or break me, Dan.... There, I want