l going out to take our chances together?"

"Quarrel with you!" Tom rose and came to the desk, looking across it at
his friend. "Did you think I might do that?"

"Yes--I thought so."

"Crailey!" And now Tom's expression showed desperation; it was that of
a man whose apprehensions have culminated and who is forced to face a
crisis long expected, long averted, but imminent at last. His eyes fell
from Crailey's clear gaze and his hand fidgeted among the papers on the
desk.

"No," he began with a painful lameness and hesitation. "I did not
mean it--no; I meant, that, in the same way, only one thing in
this other--this other affair that seems so confused and is such
a problem--only one thing has grown clear. It doesn't seem to me
that--that--" here he drew a deep breath, before he went on with
increasing nervousness--"that if you like a man and have lived with him
a good many years; that is to say, if you're really much of a friend to
him, I don't believe you sit on a high seat and judge him. Judging, and
all that, haven't much part in it. And it seems to me that you've got
yourself into a pretty bad mix-up, Crailey."

"Yes," said Crailey. "It's pretty bad."

"Well," Tom looked up now, with an almost tremulous smile, "I believe
that is about all I can make of it. Do you think it's the part of your
best friend to expose you? It seems to me that if there ever was a time
when I ought to stand by you, it's now."

There was a silence while they looked at each other across the desk in
the faint light. Tom's eye fell again as Crailey opened his lips.

"And in spite of everything," Crailey said breathlessly, "you mean that
you won't tell?"

"How could I, Crailey?" said Tom Vanrevel as he turned away.

CHAPTER XV. When June Came

"Methought I met a Damsel Fair And tears were in her eyes; Her head and
arms were bare, I heard her bursting sighs.

"I stopp'd and looked her in the face, 'Twas then she sweetly smiled.
Her features shone with mournful grace, Far more than Nature's child.

"With diffident and downcast eye, In modest tones she spoke; She wiped a
tear and gave a sigh, And then her silence broke--"

So sang Mrs. Tanberry at the piano, relieving the melancholy which
possessed her; but Nelson, pausing in the hail to listen, and
exceedingly curious concerning the promised utterance of the Damsel
Fair, was to suffer disappointment, as the ballad was broken off
abruptly and the songstress closed the piano with