mount."

"You may put it in any way you like," Davenant smiled. "I've come with
the offer of the money. I want you to have it. The terms on which you'd
take it don't matter to me."

"But they do to me. Don't you see? I'd borrow the money if I could. I
couldn't accept it in any other way. And I can't borrow it. I couldn't
pay the interest on it if I did. But I've exhausted my credit. I can't
borrow any more."

"You can borrow what I'm willing to lend, can't you?"

"No; because Tory Hill is mortgaged for all it will stand. I've nothing
else to offer as collateral--"

"I'm not asking for collateral. I'm ready to hand you over the money on
any terms you like or on no terms at all."

"Do you mean that you'd be willing to--to--to _give_ it to me?"

"I mean, sir," he explained, reddening a little, "that I want you to
have the money to _use_--now. We could talk about the conditions
afterward and call them what you please. If I understood you correctly
last night, you're in a tight place--a confoundedly tight place--"

"I am; but--don't be offended!--it seems to me you'd put me in a
tighter."

"How's that?"

[Illustration: "I'VE DONE WRONG, BUT I'M WILLING TO PAY THE PENALTY"]

"It's a little difficult to explain." He leaned forward, with one of his
nervous, jerky movements, and fingered the glass containing the three
chrysanthemums, but without taking his eyes from Davenant. So far he was
quite satisfied with himself. "You see, it's this way. I've done
wrong--very wrong. We needn't go into that, because you know it as well
as I. But I'm willing to pay the penalty. That is, I'm _ready_ to pay
the penalty. I've made up my mind to it. I've had to--of course. But if
I accepted your offer, you'd be paying it, not I."

"Well, why shouldn't I? I've paid other people's debts before now--once
or twice--when I didn't want to. Why shouldn't I pay yours, when I
should like the job?"

Davenant attempted, by taking something like a jovial tone, to carry the
thing off lightly.

"There's no reason why you shouldn't do it; there's only a reason why I
shouldn't let you."

"I don't see why you shouldn't let me. It mayn't be just what you'd
like, but it's surely better than--than what you wouldn't like at all."

Taking in the significance of these words, Guion colored, not with the
healthy young flush that came so readily to Davenant's face, but in
dabbled, hectic spots. His hand trembled, too, so that some of the water
from t