down: Mrs.
Fisher told me about it. But I understood you got a legacy from her----"

"I got ten thousand dollars; but the legacy is not to be paid till next
summer."

"Well, but--look here: you could BORROW on it any time you wanted."

She shook her head gravely. "No; for I owe it already."

"Owe it? The whole ten thousand?"

"Every penny." She paused, and then continued abruptly, with her eyes on
his face: "I think Gus Trenor spoke to you once about having made some
money for me in stocks."

She waited, and Rosedale, congested with embarrassment, muttered that he
remembered something of the kind.

"He made about nine thousand dollars," Lily pursued, in the same tone of
eager communicativeness. "At the time, I understood that he was
speculating with my own money: it was incredibly stupid of me, but I knew
nothing of business. Afterward I found out that he had NOT used my
money--that what he said he had made for me he had really given me. It
was meant in kindness, of course; but it was not the sort of obligation
one could remain under. Unfortunately I had spent the money before I
discovered my mistake; and so my legacy will have to go to pay it back.
That is the reason why I am trying to learn a trade."

She made the statement clearly, deliberately, with pauses between the
sentences, so that each should have time to sink deeply into her hearer's
mind. She had a passionate desire that some one should know the truth
about this transaction, and also that the rumour of her intention to
repay the money should reach Judy Trenor's ears. And it had suddenly
occurred to her that Rosedale, who had surprised Trenor's confidence, was
the fitting person to receive and transmit her version of the facts. She
had even felt a momentary exhilaration at the thought of thus relieving
herself of her detested secret; but the sensation gradually faded in the
telling, and as she ended her pallour was suffused with a deep blush of
misery.

Rosedale continued to stare at her in wonder; but the wonder took the
turn she had least expected.

"But see here--if that's the case, it cleans you out altogether?"

He put it to her as if she had not grasped the consequences of her act;
as if her incorrigible ignorance of business were about to precipitate
her into a fresh act of folly.

"Altogether--yes," she calmly agreed.

He sat silent, his thick hands clasped on the table, his little puzzled
eyes exploring the recesses of the deserted r