on. "I have worked every night this week trying to straighten out
those accounts of mine by the first of the year and--and I can't do
it. An expert begins on them in a couple of days. You must call up
the office to-morrow and tell them that I am ill, tell them
anything. I must get at least a day or two start before they--"

"Carlton," she interrupted, "what is the matter? What have you--"

She checked herself in surprise. He had been fumbling in his pocket
and now laid down a pile of green and yellow banknotes on the table.

"I have scraped together every last cent I can spare," he continued,
talking jerkily to suppress his emotion. "They cannot take those
away from you, Constance. And--when I am settled--in a new life," he
swallowed hard and averted his eyes further from her startled gaze,
"under a new name, somewhere, if you have just a little spot in your
heart that still responds to me, I--I--no, it is too much even to
hope. Constance, the accounts will not come out right because I am--
I am an embezzler."

He bit off the word viciously and then sank his head into his hands
and bowed it to a depth that alone could express his shame.

Why did she not say something, do something? Some women would have
fainted. Some would have denounced him. But she stood there and he
dared not look up to read what was written in her face. He felt
alone, all alone, with every man's hand against him, he who had
never in all his life felt so or had done anything to make him feel
so before. He groaned as the sweat of his mental and physical agony
poured coldly out on his forehead. All that he knew was that she was