ll marry him."

"I will not marry this man," declared the girl. "It has been a mistake
from the beginning. As to your business with him, mother, that is not my
affair. You must settle it."

"You belong in the settlement," declared Dodd. "Hold on! Don't leave
this room, Kate."

He reached out his hands to intercept her, and Mrs. Kilgour, released,
fell upon the floor and began to grovel and cry entreaties.

But his raucous tones overrode her appeals.

"We're all together in this. I am five thousand dollars shy in the state
treasury, Kate. I took that money and loaned it to your mother when she
begged me to save her stocks. But she didn't have any stocks."

Mrs. Kilgour grasped his knees and shook him. But he kept on.

"She had embezzled from Dalton & Company. What I did saved her from
prison and you from disgrace, Kate. And now I am in the hole! Listen
here! There's hell to pay in this state just now! The soreheads are
banding together. A man has just offered to bet me big money that
there's going to be an overturn in the State House departments. I don't
know whether it will happen--but you can understand what kind of torment
I'm in. Kate, are you going to let me stand this thing all alone?"

The girl stood silent and motionless in the middle of the room.

She did not weep or faint. Her face displayed no emotion. It was as
white as marble.

"Do you want to drag my daughter down with you?" cried Mrs. Kilgour.

"You'd better not talk about dragging down," he shouted, passionately.
"I didn't steal for myself. Give me your love, Kate! Give me yourself
to encourage me, and I'll get out of the scrape somehow. I'll find ways.
But if you don't come with me I won't have the courage or the desire to
fight my way through. I'll not disgrace you if you marry me--I swear I
will not! With you to protect from everything I'll make good. Symonds
Dodd is my uncle. He won't see the family name pulled in. But you must
marry me!"

"And if I do not?" she asked.

"We'll all go to damnation together. I don't care! I'll blow it all. I
won't be disgraced alone because of something I did for your mother. I
may sound like a cur. I don't care, I say! I'm going to have you, and I
don't care how I get you!"

"We need not be so dramatic," said the girl. Some wonderful influence
seemed to be controlling her. "Mother, stop your noise and go and sit
in that chair. You demand, do you, Mr. Dodd, that to save my mother from
exposure as a woma