Page:A fool in spots (IA foolinspots00riveiala).pdf/34

 that's your theory, there's one remedy: I'll break your circuit."

"Was there ever such a tangle of weakness and strength in woman?" he asked himself. He bit his lips and marvelled; he had again been thwarted. Pretty soon he leaned heavily on the table, and looked the embodiment of despair.

"What makes you so gloomy?" asked Cherokee, sweetly.

"Because I am a lost and ruined man. I never felt quite so alone and friendless."

"Why friendless? Tell me what it is that makes you so downhearted?" Her tones were well calculated to reassure him.

"I am suffering from the inevitable misery which, as a ghost, follows the erring," he said, and his voice was hard.

"Tell me all about it, Mr. Frost, that I may be in sympathy with you."

"Then I will tell you all," raising a face that looked worn and worried. "There is nothing of sentiment in my misfortune; as rascally old Panurge used to put it, 'I am troubled with a disease known as a plentiful lack of money.'"

"Why, Mr. Frost, I thought you were rich; the world takes it that way."

"I did possess a fair competency until two weeks