favor who
wasn't asked to repeat it--paying one debt by contracting another,
finding a creditor who will trust, and trading on his trust? Yet I'd
rather owe you two debts than most men one." She held out her hand to
him. "Well, it doesn't do to mope--'The merry heart goes all the day,
the sad one tires in a mile-a.' And I am out for all day. Please wish
me a happy new year."

He took her hand in both of his. "I wish you to go through this year as
you ended the last--in a blaze of glory."

"Yes, really a blaze if not of glory," she said, with bright tears, yet
laughing, too, a big warm humour shining in her strong face with the
dark brown eyes and the thick, heavy eyebrows under a low, broad
forehead like his own. They were indeed strangely alike in many ways
both of mind and body.

"They say we end the year as we begin it," he said, cheerily. "You
proved to Destiny that you were entitled to all she could give in the
old year, and you shall have the best that's to be had in 1897. You are
a woman in a million, and--"

"May I come and breakfast with you some morning?" she asked, gaily.

"Well, if ever I'm thought worthy of that honour, don't hesitate. As
the Spanish say, It is all yours." He waved a hand to the surroundings.

"No, it is all yours," she said, reflectively, her eyes slowly roaming
about her. "It is all you. I'm glad to have been here, to be as near as
this to your real life. Real life is so comforting after the mock kind
so many of us live; which singers and actors live anyhow."

She looked round the room again. "I feel--I don't know why it is, but I
feel that when I'm in trouble I shall always want to come to this room.
Yes, and I will surely come; for I know there's much trouble in store
for me. You must let me come. You are the only man I would go to like
this, and you can't think what it means to me--to feel that I'm not
misunderstood, and that it seems absolutely right to come. That's
because any woman could trust you--as I do. Good-bye."

In another moment she had gone, and he stood beside the table with the
envelope she had left with him. Presently he opened it, and unfolded
the cheque which was in it. Then he gave an exclamation of astonishment.

"Seven thousand pounds!" he exclaimed. "That's a better estimate of
Krugerism than I thought she had. It'll take much more than that,
though, if it's done at all; but she certainly has sense. It's seven
thousand times too much for Blantyre," he ad