you, and the privilege of trying
to help you."

Her eyes were still cast down, and suddenly she flushed, a strange, dark
flush that looked out of place on the pure whiteness of her skin. She
had the exaggerated but wholesome pallor of skin that often goes with
reddish hair and red-brown eyes. It does not lend itself becomingly to
flushes, and this deep flush lingered, an unwelcome visitor, throughout
her muttered, almost ungracious words.

"Oh, please don't talk about it," she said, brusquely. "It's no use. I
know you mean to be kind, but you can't do anything."

"Oh, but that's just where you're wrong." Laurie spoke with a cheerful
assurance he did not feel. "If I hadn't been there myself, I'd talk all
sorts of twaddle to you, and do more harm than good; and I'd probably
let you go on thinking you were facing a trouble that no one could help.
Instead of that, you and I are going to hold your bugaboo up to the
light, and see just what it is and how small it is. And then--" he smiled
at her--"we're going to get rid of it together."

She echoed his words, vaguely, as if not knowing quite what to say.

"Get rid of it?"

"Yes. Tell me what it is, and I'll show you how it can be downed."

She pushed back her chair, as if anxious to put a greater distance
between them.

"No," she exclaimed, nervously, "it's impossible; I can't talk about
it." Then, in an obvious effort to side-track the issue, "You said you
wanted to tell me about your--experience."

"I do, but it isn't a nice story. Fortunately, it won't take long." He
spoke reluctantly. It was not easy to hook two such memories out of the
darkest pool of his life and hold them up to a stranger.

"Oh, I was a young idiot," he rushed on, "and I suppose I hadn't the
proper start-off. At least I like to think there's some excuse for me.
My father and mother died when I was in knickerbockers, and I grew up
doing very much as I pleased. I--made a bad job of it. Before I was
twenty-one I was expelled from college and I had worked up a pretty
black reputation. Then I gambled and lost a lot of money I didn't have,
and it began to look as if about the only safe place for me was the
family vault.

"I made two efforts to get there. The first time a wise old doctor
stopped me and never told any one about it. The second time one of my
chums took a hand in the game. I don't know why they did it. I don't
suppose either my pal or the doctor thought I was worth saving. But they