to my
family."

"You know one way of preventing it and you'd better get busy, Mrs.
Kilgour," he advised. "I'm going to give you another chance of keeping
your word and paying your debt to me. I want Kate--and I have waited for
her long enough."

He clapped on his hat and hurried away.

He left the mother sprawled on a couch, her ringed hands clutched
into her dyed hair. She was still clucking sobs which would not have
convinced any unprejudiced hearer that she felt real grief.

When Richard Dodd entered his uncle's offices in the First National
block a little later he was in the mood to force his affairs a bit. He
enjoyed liberties there which the ordinary caller did not have and he
walked into Kate Kilgour's little room without attracting attention or
comment.

"I know exactly how you feel about last night, Kate." He addressed her
respectfully and humbly. "I understand that this is no place to discuss
the matter. I haven't come here to do so. I apologize for the affair.
I'm going to say this to you--I took your mother's advice. She planned
the thing and trumped up the errand which called you to that house. I'm
afraid she is rather too romantic. I only say this, Kate: a man's love
can make him do foolish things. Please talk with your mother when you go
home--and take her advice. If you do, it will be better for all of us."
He trembled with the restraint he had put upon himself. "You can see
that I have been punished, Kate. I am a different man--you ought to be
able to see it. Awful trouble has come to me. I need your love to help
me through it."

She gazed at him with level, cold eyes.

"You don't understand. I can't explain, dear! But I'm telling you the
truth. Kate, if you don't forget that folly I was guilty of last night
and be to me what you have been--if you don't marry me very soon you
will be sorry."

"Are you threatening me, Richard?"

"No, I didn't mean it to sound like that. But I know that with your
appreciation of what sacrifice means you will be very unhappy if you
toss me away and then find out certain things."

"This is not the time for riddles, Richard. What do you mean?"

"I have said all I can say."

"I do not love you well enough to be your wife. I have not meant to
play the coquette. I have not known myself. You and my mother--Oh, why
rehearse? You know the story. You have understood that my love for
you was not what you should have. We may as well end it here and now,
Richard. I wi