willing to pay for it?"

He looked at her incredulously.

"I do not quite understand!" he said.

She laughed, and the laugh belonged to her old self.

"Indeed! I thought that I was explicit enough, brutally explicit, even.
What have you to offer me in place of your name and yourself? What
sacrifice are you prepared to make?"

He looked at her furtively, as though even then he doubted the
significance of her words.

"You have already half my income," he said, slowly.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"A thousand a year! What can one do on that? To live decently in town one
needs much more."

"It is as much as I can offer," he remarked, stiffly.

"Then you should earn money," she declared. "It's easy enough for men
with brains. Go back into politics instead of idling your time away down
in Blakely. I mean it! I've no patience with men who have a right to a
place in the world which they won't fill."

"Surely," he remonstrated, "I may be allowed to choose the manner of my