watching me now. I can't stir. There's no escape, and there's no one I
can ask for help but you. That's why I've come, Flood."

"Lord, what a fool! Couldn't you see what the end would be, if your
plunging didn't come off? You--you oughtn't to bet, or speculate, or
play cards, you're not clever enough. You've got blind rashness, and so
you think you're bold. And Di--oh, you idiot! And on a salary of a
thousand dollars a year!"

"I suppose Di would help me; but I couldn't explain." The weak face
puckered, a lifeless kind of tear gathered in the ox-like eyes.

"Yes, she probably would help you. She'd probably give you all she's
saved to go to Europe with and study, saved from her pictures sold at
twenty per cent of their value; and she'd mortgage the little income
she's got to keep her brother out of jail. Of course she would, and of
course you ought to be ashamed of yourself for thinking of it." Rawley
lighted his cigar and smoked fiercely.

"It would be better for her than my going to jail," stubbornly replied
the other. "But I don't want to tell her, or to ask her for money.
That's why I've come to you. You needn't be so hard, Flood; you've not
been a saint; and Di knows it."

Rawley took the cheroot from his mouth, threw back his head, and laughed
mirthlessly, ironically. Then suddenly he stopped and looked round the
room till his eyes rested on a portrait-drawing which hung on the wall
opposite the window, through which the sun poured. It was the face of a
girl with beautiful bronzed hair, and full, fine, beautifully modelled
face, with brown eyes deep and brooding, which seemed to have time and