good
name of Aiken.

I am, dear Mr. Hemingway, contritely and sincerely yours,

SAPPHIRA TENNANT
(formerly Dolly Tennant).

But Mr. Hemingway refused to touch the reward, and Miss Tennant remained
in his debt for the full amount of her loan. She began at once to save
what she could from her allowance. And she called this fund her
"conscience money."

Miss Tennant and David Larkin did not meet again until the moment of the
latter's departure from Aiken. And she was only one of a number who
drove to the station to see him off. Possibly to guard against his
impulsive nature, she remained in her runabout during the brief
farewell. And what they said to each other might have been (and probably
was) heard by others.

Aiken felt that it had misjudged Larkin, and he departed in high favor.
He had paid what he owed, so Aiken confessed to having misjudged his
resources. He had suddenly stopped short in all evil ways, so Aiken
confessed to having misjudged his strength of character. He had
announced that he was going out West to seek the bubble wealth in the
mouth of an Idaho apple valley, so Aiken cheered him on and wished him
well. And when Aiken beheld the calmness of his farewells to Miss
Tennant, Aiken said: "And he seems to have gotten over that."

But Larkin had done nothing of the kind, and he said to himself, as he
lay feverish and restless in a stuffy upper berth: "It isn't because
she's so beautiful or so kind; it's because she always speaks the truth.
Most girls lie about everything, not in so many words, perhaps, but in
fact. She doesn't. She lets you know what she thinks, and where you
stand ... and I didn't stand very high."

Despair seized him. How is it possible to go into a strange world, with
only nine hundred dollars in your pocket, and carve a fortune? "When can
I pay her back? What must I do if I fail?..." Then came thoughts that
were as grains of comfort. Was her lending him money philanthropy pure
and simple, an act emanating from her love of mankind? Was it not rather
an act emanating from affection for a particular man? If so, that
man--misguided boy, bird tumbled out of the nest, child that had escaped
from its nurse--was not hard to find. "I could lay my finger on him,"
thought Larkin, and he did so--five fingers, somewhat grandiosely upon
the chest. A gas lamp peered at him over the curtain pole; snores shook
the imprisoned atmosphere of the car. And Larkin's thoughts fl