r plan?" said Dave, kindly. "Any plan, no matter how bad,
is always better than no plan."

"I thought," said Merton, timidly,--"I thought if I could build a
little shack on the lots I could live there with the boy and we could
raise a very fine garden. The soil is very fertile, and at least we
should not starve. And the gardening would be good for me, and I could
perhaps keep some chickens, and work out at odd jobs as well. But it
takes money to build even a very small shack."

"How much money?" demanded Dave.

"If I had a hundred dollars----"

"Bring your title to me to-morrow; to me, personally, you understand.
I'll advance you five hundred dollars."

Merton sprang up, and there was more enthusiasm in his eyes than had
seemed possible "You will? But I don't need that much----"

"Then use the surplus to live on."

So the Merton affair was straightened away in a manner which left Dave
more at peace with his conscience. But another event, much more
dramatic and far-reaching in its effects upon his life, was already
ripe for the enacting.

Business conditions had necessitated unwonted economy in the office
affairs of Conward & Elden, as a result of which many old employees had
been laid off, and others had been replaced by cheaper and less
experienced labour. Stenographers who had been receiving a hundred
dollars a month could not readily bring themselves to accept fifty, and
some of them had to make way for new girls, fresh from the business
colleges. Such a new girl was Gladys Wardin; pretty, likeable,
inexperienced. Her country home had offered no answer to her
ambitions, and she had come to the city with the most dangerous
equipment a young woman can carry--an attractive face and an
unsophisticated confidence in the goodness of humanity. Conward had
been responsible for her position in the office, and Dave had given
little thought to her, except to note that she was a willing worker and
of comely appearance.

Returning to the office one Saturday evening Dave found Miss Wardin
making up a bundle of paper, pencils, and carbon paper. She was
evidently in high spirits, and he smilingly asked if she intended
working at home over Sunday.

"Oh, didn't Mr. Conward tell you?" she answered, as though surprised
that the good news had been kept a secret. "He is going to spend a day
or two at one of the mountain hotels, and I am to go along to do his
correspondence. Isn't it just lovely? I have so wanted