ily raised his head. He met the colonel's
fiery gaze without flinching.

"I was no worse than other young men--"

"It's a slander upon young men for you to say that they--that any of
them with a spark of decency--would do as you have done, as you DO!
Leave my office at once, sir!"

"I've not only repented--I've shown that I was ashamed of--of that,"
said Dumont. "Yet you refuse me a chance!"

The colonel was shaking with anger.

"You left here for New York last Thursday night," he said. "Where and
how did you spend Saturday night and Sunday and Monday?"

Dumont's eyes shifted and sank.

"It's false," he muttered. "It's lies."

"I expected this call from you," continued Colonel Gardiner, "and I
prepared for it so that I could do what was right. I'd rather see my
daughter in her shroud than in a wedding-dress for you."

Dumont left without speaking or looking up.

"The old fox!" he said to himself. "Spying on me--what an idiot I was
not to look out for that. The narrow old fool! He doesn't know what
'man of the world' means. But I'll marry her in spite of him. I'll
let nobody cheat me out of what I want, what belongs to me."

A few nights afterward he went to a dance at Braddock's, hunted out
Pauline and seated himself beside her. In a year he had not been so
near her, though they had seen each other every few days and he had
written her many letters which she had read, had treasured, but had
been held from answering by her sense of honor, unless her looks
whenever their eyes met could be called answers.

"You mustn't, Jack," she said, her breath coming fast, her eyes
fever-bright. "Father has forbidden me--and it'll only make him the
harder."

"You, too, Polly? Well, then, I don't care what becomes of me."

He looked so desperate that she was frightened.

"It isn't that, Jack--you KNOW it isn't that."

"I've been to see your father. And he told me he'd never
consent--never! I don't deserve that--and I can't stand it to lose
you. No matter what I've done, God knows I love you, Polly."

Pauline's face was pale. Her hands, in her lap, were gripping her
little handkerchief.

"You don't say that, too--you don't say 'never'?"

She raised her eyes to his and their look thrilled through and through
him. "Yes, John, I say 'never'--I'll NEVER give you up."

All the decent instincts in his nature showed in his handsome face, in
which time had not as yet had the chance clearly to write chara