l and
desirable--and unattainable.

"I have come," she said, in a tone that cut him to the heart for its
very indifference. "What have you to say for yourself?"

He rose quickly and offered her the chair; and when she would not take
it, he put his back to the wall and stood with her.

"I'm afraid I haven't left myself much to say," he began penitently. "I
was born foolish, and it seems that I haven't outgrown it. But, really,
if you could know--"

"Unhappily, I do know," she interrupted. "If I did not, I might listen
to you with better patience."

"It did look pretty bad," he confessed. "And that's what I wanted to
say; it looked a great deal worse than it was, you know."

"I _don't_ know," she retorted.

"You are tangling me," he said, gaining something in self-possession
under the flick of the whip. "First you say you know, and then you say
you don't know. Which is which?"

"If you are flippant I shall go in," she threatened. "There are things
that not even the most loyal friendship can condone."

"That's the difference between friendship and love," he asserted. "I
believe I'd enjoy a little more real confidence and a little less of the
dutiful kind of loyalty."

"You ask too much," she said, quite coolly. "Forgiveness implies
penitence and continued good behavior."

"No, it doesn't, anything of the kind," he denied, matching her tone.
"That is the purely pagan point of view, and you are barred from taking
it. You are bound to consider the motive."

"I am bound to believe what I see with my own eyes," she rejoined.
"Perhaps you can make it appear that seeing is not believing."

"Of course I can't, if you take that attitude," he complained. And then
he said irritably: "You talk about friendship! You don't know the
meaning of the word!"

"If I didn't, I should hardly be here at this moment," she suggested.
"You don't seem to apprehend to what degrading depths you have sunk."

His sins in the business field rose before him accusingly and prompted
his reply.

"Yes, I do; but that is another matter. We were speaking of what you
saw this evening. Will you let me try to explain?"

"Yes, if you will tell the plain truth."

"Lacking imagination, I can't do anything else. Nan has had a
falling-out with the old scamp of a moonshiner who calls himself her
father. She came to me for help, and broke down in the midst of telling
me about it. I can't stand a woman's crying any better than other men."

The sla