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 to know. What I thought you could do would be to send for him and say that you believed in him, and were going to give him a start. You know what I mean."

"Just like a fairy-tale, eh?" he said wryly. "The fatherly old banker and"

He checked himself when he saw her face. His eyes rested on Henry's letter, still on the desk. "I beg you to stand by me." But what did Dowling want? She was going to stick to the fellow. Did he want her to starve?

"Perhaps I ought to tell you," she went on hurriedly. "I have a check for a thousand dollars, too. My aunt sent it to me. But I have not told Tom about it. He doesn't"

"He doesn't want them to keep you, so he'll let you do without," he commented. "Well, that's the nature of a man, Kay."

Nevertheless his opinion of Tom McNair rose somewhat, and of Henry Dowling's perspicacity decreased. If this was the brief infatuation, the romantic nonsense he had contemptuously dubbed it, then there was no such thing as lasting love. And this girl across was no fool. Reading faces was a part of his business; he saw clearly in hers that any illusions she might have cherished were gone, but that she had replaced them with something else, perhaps even deeper and more profound. He had been prepared to pity her. He found himself respecting her.

"Did he know you were coming here today?"

"No. I don't want him to know, Mr. Tulloss."

"I see! I'm to call him in and offer him—just what am I to offer him, anyhow?"

And then she said something that might have come from old Lucius himself.

"A chance," she told him. "When a man who's worth while is down and out, and he gets a chance, he makes ood."

It touched him. And was it such a chance, after all? He knew McNair was a good cow-man, provided he kept sober and let women alone. He would have to make that a part of the agreement. That Hamel girl, for instance.

"I'll do this," he said, in his dry old voice. "I'll make