event it," Lady Farquhar
insisted stanchly.

"I 'member a girl who sacrificed herself for a line lieutenant without a
shilling to call his own," he soliloquized aloud. "Would have him, and
did, by Jove! Three deaths made him Lord Farquhar later, but she married
the penniless subaltern."

"I've always been glad I did." She squeezed his arm fondly. "But this is
different, James."

Kilmeny and Moya stopped. The young man doffed his gray felt hat and
bowed.

"Mornin', Lady Farquhar--Lord Farquhar. We've come to ask your
permission for our marriage."

"Mornin', rebels. Fancy I'll have to refuse it," cut back Farquhar, eyes
twinkling. For this bold directness pleased and amused him.

"That would distress us extremely," answered Kilmeny with a genial
smile.

"But would not affect your plans, I understand you to mean."

"You catch the idea exactly, sir."

Lady Farquhar entered the conversation. "Are you planning to go to
prison with him, Moya, when he is convicted of highgrading?" she asked
pleasantly.

Moya told in three sentences of what her lover had done. The Englishman
wrung Kilmeny's hand cordially.

"By Jove, you reform thoroughly when you go about it. Don't think I'd
have enjoyed writing that check for Miss Joyce. Leaves you strapped,
does it?"

"Dead broke," came the very cheerful reply.

"But of course Moya has some money," said Lady Farquhar quietly.

The Westerner winced. "Wish she hadn't. It's the only thing I have to
forgive her."

Farquhar lifted his eyebrows. "Di," he remonstrated.

His wife came to time with a frank apology. "That was downright nasty of
me, Mr. Kilmeny. I withdraw it. None the less, I think Moya would be
throwing herself away. Do you realize what you are proposing? She's been
used to the best ever since she was born. Have you the means to supply
her needs? Or are you considering a Phyllida and Corydon idyll in a
cottage?"

"It will have to be something of that sort at first. I've told her all
this too, Lady Farquhar."

"What does that matter if we love each other?" Moya asked.

"You'll find it matters a good deal," said Lady Jim dryly. "When poverty
comes in love is likely to wink out any day. Of course I realize that
yours is of a quality quite unusual. It always is, my dear. Every lover
has thought that since time began."

"We'll have to take our fighting chance of that," Jack replied.

Moya, her eyes shining, nodded agreement. No great gain can be won
without ri