"We paid fifty cents on the dollar," he
said presently, "and by and by shall manage something of a dividend at
the bank. It will give me plenty to do for years yet," he added with a
peculiar smile.

"You have assumed your father's debts?" I exclaimed. "That seems a
needless penalty, Jack."

"My father and I are as one," said he gently. "It was fortunate for me
in every way that I was not my father's partner. When I entered Holt &
Co. he gave up everything to me. I have the entire business now, and it
leaves me little unoccupied time."

"You are doing well, I trust."

"Reasonably well." I knew the look on his heavy, sombre face--a patient
but combative look, powerful as Fate itself.

"Do you mind telling me the rest, Jack?" I asked after a time. "If it
hurts you don't open your lips."

The veins in his forehead swelled a little, yet he neither flinched nor
reddened. "I suppose," he answered, his voice a little less clear and
distinct, "you allude to my engagement to Miss Lenox. It was broken off
when these troubles came. We were to have been married a year ago in
June, but I was not quite free to take her travelling, and it seemed her
wish to wait. The wedding-day was quite fixed for a fortnight after the
date of my poor father's sickness. Of course I offered her her freedom
at once when I realized my scanty prospects of ensuring her a luxurious
future. Naturally, everything was broken off. I am hampered by
circumstances. I shall never feel myself free to live even in ordinary
comfort until my father's debts are paid to the last penny. My first
duty is to my father and mother. My sisters are all married, have large
families, and, above all, have lost the home feeling. We three are alone
in the world in our reverses. When you see our home, Floyd, you won't
wonder that I could not ask Georgy to come to it."

"But would she have come, Jack?" I stammered. "Was she faithful to you?
would she not wait for you?"

"Georgy is not romantic," he said kindly, "and has not been brought up
in a school which inspires the tenderest feelings. I should never have
expected that sort of devotion from her, nor am I one to inspire it. I
knew at once when the dark days came that everything was over. Blow
after blow had struck me: just at that time that she should desert me
was but one blow the more."

I threw my arm about him in the old way, but he did not turn now and
smile into my face as when we were boys. This gloom was not so