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 said briskly, "Well, have you got the squaring money?"

"Yes," said Hilary Vance; and he went to the rickety bureau against the left wall of the studio and took from an inner drawer some bank-notes.

Mr. James took them, counted them, and said cheerfully, "Ten fivers—that's right—it looks so much more than five tenners."

Hilary Vance gazed at him thoughtfully; and a vast gloom slowly overspread his large, round face.

"It's all very well," he said heavily. "But I keep asking myself am I justified, James? I have raised hopes—high hopes—in a young girl's heart; and I am forcing her—yes, forcing her—to barter them for ten paltry five-pound notes. I can not rid myself of the thought that I have made her love me; and now I am behaving like a damned scoundrel."

He spoke in a tone of such deep and sorrowful self-reproach that Pollyooly could no longer keep silence.

"Oh, no, sir," she said quickly. "She doesn't love you; she loves Alf."

"Alf? Who is Alf?" cried Hilary Vance with a sudden fierceness.