ght, and if it wasn't for you I'd be broke. No, I'll
never forget what you did for me, Mary; and I'll never forget what he
did, either!"

"No, I hope you won't," she said, winking fast, "because that's what's
ruined your life. He can always whip you when it comes to business,
because you fight in the open and he never shows his hand. And he's
absolutely unscrupulous--he'd think no more of ruining our happiness
than--than you do, when you're fighting mad. Oh, if you knew how I
suffered during all those long months when you were stock-gambling and
going around with--her."

"Aw, now, Mary," he soothed, wiping away the sweat from his brow; and
then he took her into his arms. "Now, don't cry," he said, "because I
went back there to look for you--I paid out thousands of dollars for
detectives. And when I saw you that time, when you came down the
stairway in that opera house back in New York, I never went near her
again. I quit her at the door and had detectives out everywhere; but,
you went away, you never gave me a chance!"

"Well," she sobbed, "we all make mistakes, but--but I was so ashamed,
to be jealous of _her_. Couldn't you see what she was? Couldn't you
tell that type of woman? Oh, Rimrock, it was perfectly awful!
Everybody that saw you, every woman that looked at her, must have--oh,
I just can't bear to think about it!"

"My God!" groaned Rimrock; and then he was silent, looking sober-eyed
away into space. It came over him at last what this woman had borne
from him and yet she had been faithful to the end. She had even
befriended him after he had accused her of treachery, but she had
reserved the privilege of hating him. Perhaps that was the woman of
it, he did not know; if so, he had never observed it before. Or
perhaps--he straightened up and drew her closer--perhaps she was the
One Woman in the world! Perhaps she was the only woman he would ever
know who would love him for himself, and take no thought for his money.
She had loved him when he was poor----

"Say," he said in a far-away voice, "do you remember when I saw you
that first time? You looked mighty good to me then. And I was so
ragged, and wild and woolly, but you sure came through with the roll.
The whole roll, at that. Say, I ain't going to forget that--Rimrock
Jones never forgets a friend. Some time when you ain't looking for it
I'm going to do something for you like giving that roll to me.
Something hard, you understand; someth