s be
calm and practical."

Aurora Lane's face froze into a sudden icy mask of wonder, of
astonishment. She gulped a little. "I'm trying to be calm. I'm
desperate, or I'd never have come here. You know that."

He was mumbling and clucking in his throat, gesturing imploringly,
trying to stop her swift speech, which might be overheard, but she went
on, not understanding.

"Until just now I was so happy. He was done with his schooling--ready to
go out at his work. The expenses were very heavy for us, but we've
managed. Look!"

She drew from her worn pocketbook the single bill that she had left in
all the world, a tight-creased, worn thing. "In some way I've managed to
hold on to this," said she. "It's all I've got left in all the world.
That's my twenty-odd years of savings--except what I've spent to bring
up my boy. I've got no more."

"My dear Madam," said Judge Henderson again, sighing, "life certainly
has its trials at times." A remark sufficiently banal to pass muster
with both his hearers, Aurora Lane here and Anne Oglesby in the room
beyond. But, still ignorant of any other auditor, Aurora went on as
though she had not heard him:

"I thought I'd come and talk to you--at last. If only Don could get out,
I'd be willing to leave with him. We'd never trouble anybody any more."
Her face was turned to him beseechingly.

"I know, of course, that you could save him if you liked.... I've had a
pretty hard time of it. Don't you want to do this for him--for us--how
can you _help_ wanting to? You, of all men! My God! Oh, my God!"

"Hush! Hush! Don't speak so loud! Pray compose yourself, my dear Madam,"
exclaimed Judge Henderson, himself so far from composed. His own face
was ghastly in its open apprehension. "He's ruined himself, that's all,
that boy," he concluded lamely.

She stood before him, stony cold, for a time, growing whiter and whiter.

"And what about my own ruin? What does it leave to me, if they take my
boy--all I have in the world? I didn't think you could hesitate a
moment--not even you!" Her voice, icy cold, was that of another woman.

He turned from her, flinging out his hands. "He has disgraced you----"
he began, still weakly; for he at least knew he was doubly on the
defensive now, before these two women, terrible in their love.

"No, he has not!" flared Aurora Lane at last. "If I've had disgrace it's
not through any fault of his. If he raised a hand in my defense, it was
the first man's hand th