ys at the Van Rensselaer's it was just as it
had been in Carolina. It was only fear that kept me from saying I'd
marry him."

"He wants to marry you now? He has asked you?" Dermott spoke softly for
her sake, keeping from his voice the scorn he felt for Ravenel.

"Yes," she returned. "And I know all you're thinking; but it makes no
difference! When I think of him, ill, perhaps dying, his fortune gone,
and nameless, maybe, as well, I'd give my soul to save him!" she cried,
tear-eyed and pale, but glorious in self-abnegation.

She had risen and stood before him with eyes uplifted and unseeing. For
a moment only she stood thus, before, the strain of the time proving too
great for her to endure longer, she turned suddenly, and but for his
supporting arm would have fallen. For a little while her dear, dark head
lay against his breast, a moment never to be forgotten by him, though
with stoical delicacy he refrained from thoughts which might have
offended her could she have known them. He had grown very white before
she recovered herself, but the great light still shone in his eyes as he
placed a hand tenderly on her shoulder.

"Go home, little girl," he said. "Go home and be at peace. I give my
word to help him. I give my word that all, so far as I can make it, will
be well with him."

"Ah," she cried, "you are so good, so good!"

He made no answer whatever, standing gray-faced by the window, looking
into the storm without as she drew her cloak about her.

"Good-bye," she said.

"I'll take you to the carriage," he answered, quietly. "The storm is
still violent, I see."

Coming back to the office, he locked the door, drew the curtains, and
sat beside the dying fire alone. In the outer room he could hear the
click of poker dice, could even distinguish the voices of the players,
but they seemed far off. Life itself seemed slipping from him. Suddenly
he threw himself face downward on the rug in front of the fire and lay
shivering, catching his breath every little while in dry sobs,
impossible for any one to endure for long. Every little while he
clutched the edge of the rug in his sinewy hand, not knowing in his
agony what he did. The dreams and hopes of six years had been taken
from him, and a great imagined future built on those dreams as well. The
glory of his life had departed, and in his passionate misery there
seemed nothing ahead for him but gray skies and barren land and bitter
waters.

All night and far into