d I, finding a full voice as I shook my head; "no, I won't
smoke, and I won't sit down, thank you. Nor will you ask me to do
either when you've heard what I have to say."

"Really?" said he, lighting his own cigarette with one clear blue eye
upon me. "How do you know?"

"Because you'll probably show me the door," I cried bitterly; "and you
will be justified in doing it! But it's no use beating about the bush.
You know I dropped over two hundred just now?"

He nodded.

"I hadn't the money in my pocket."

"I remember."

"But I had my check-book, and I wrote each of you a check at that desk."

"Well?"

"Not one of them was worth the paper it was written on, Raffles. I am
overdrawn already at my bank!"

"Surely only for the moment?"

"No. I have spent everything."

"But somebody told me you were so well off. I heard you had come in for
money?"

"So I did. Three years ago. It has been my curse; now it's all
gone--every penny! Yes, I've been a fool; there never was nor will be
such a fool as I've been.... Isn't this enough for you? Why don't you
turn me out?" He was walking up and down with a very long face instead.

"Couldn't your people do anything?" he asked at length.

"Thank God," I cried, "I have no people! I was an only child. I came
in for everything there was. My one comfort is that they're gone, and
will never know."

I cast myself into a chair and hid my face. Raffles continued to pace
the rich carpet that was of a piece with everything else in his rooms.
There was no variation in his soft and even footfalls.

"You used to be a literary little cuss," he said at length; "didn't you
edit the mag. before you left? Anyway I recollect fagging you to do my
verses; and literature of all sorts is the very thing nowadays; any
fool can make a living at it."

I shook my head. "Any fool couldn't write off my debts," said I.

"Then you have a flat somewhere?" he went on.

"Yes, in Mount Street."

"Well, what about the furniture?"

I laughed aloud in my misery. "There's been a bill of sale on every
stick for months!"

And at that Raffles stood still, with raised eyebrows and stern eyes
that I could meet the better now that he knew the worst; then, with a
shrug, he resumed his walk, and for some minutes neither of us spoke.
But in his handsome, unmoved face I read my fate and death-warrant; and
with every breath I cursed my folly and my cowardice in coming to him
at all. Because he