ce.

Nevertheless, he answered wearily: "It is not an ordinary business
transaction. These people would pay me with the general public's
money, and when the mine proves profitless, as it certainly will, they
would turn the deluded shareholders loose on me."

"There are always risks in mining," Millicent observed significantly.
"The investing public understands that, doesn't it? Of course, I would
not have you dishonest, but, Geoffrey----"

Thurston was patient in action, but seldom in speech, and he broke out
hotly:

"Many a woman has sent a man to his damnation for a little luxury, but
I expected help from you. Millicent, if I assist those swindlers and
stay here dragging out the life of a gentleman pauper on a dole of
stolen money, I shall go down and down, dragging you with me. If you
will come out to a new country with me, I know you will never regret
it. Whatever is best worth winning over there, I will win for you.
Can't you see that we stand at the crossroads, and whichever way we
choose there can be no turning back! Think, and for God's sake think
well! The decision means everything to you and me."

Again Millicent was aware of an unwilling admiration for the speaker,
even though she had little for his sentiments. He stood erect, with a
grim look on his face, his nostrils quivering, and his lips firmly
set--stubborn, vindictive, powerful. Though his strength was
untrained, she knew that he was a man to trust--great in his very
failings, with no meanness in his composition, and clearly born for
risky enterprise and hazardous toil. She was a little afraid of him, a
fact which was not in itself unpleasant; but she dreaded poverty and
hardship! With a shrug of the shoulder upon which he had laid his
hand, she said:

"I think you are absurd to-day; you are hurting me. This melodramatic
pose approaches the ludicrous, and I have really no patience with your
folly. A little period of calm reflection may prove beneficial, and I
will leave you to it. Clara is beckoning me."

She turned away, and Thurston, after vainly looking around for Clara,
stalked sullenly into the hall, where he flung himself down in a chair
beside an open window. It did not please him to see Millicent take her
place before the net in the tennis court and to hear her laugh ring
lightly across the lawn. A certain sportsman named Leslie, who had
devoted himself to Miss Austin's service, watched him narrowly from a
corner of the