curiosity if I
couldn't have accounted for them. But real charities.

"And if you'd stick by me--I don't mean love me; I know you can't do
that; but live in the same house and not chuck me altogether, I'd turn
over a new leaf. I'd begin again from the beginning.

"In Texas I've got some land--a ranch. It isn't worth much, I'm afraid,
but I came by it honestly, for me. I won it at poker from a man named
Jack Haslett. He was a devil for cards, but it didn't matter. He was
rich; and he had a better ranch that he lived on. He's dead now--was near
dead then, of consumption. He liked me. Said he was glad I'd won the
ranch. It was only a bother to him.

"I was with Jack when he died, and did what I could to ease him at the
end. He was grateful, and what money his bad luck at cards had left him
he willed to me. It was only eight thousand dollars.

"If it had come to me any other way, I dare say I'd have chucked it away
in a month. It wouldn't have seemed worth saving. But I was sort of
sentimental about poor old Haslett and his feeling for me. I didn't care
to lump his money in with what I got in my line of life. I made a
separate fund of it.

"Some had to go toward improvements on the place before I could let the
ranch to any one, but there's about six thousand dollars left, I guess.
The fellow I let to wrote me a few weeks ago that he was tired of
ranching and wanted to clear out. He hoped I could find someone to buy
his cattle and the furniture he's put in the house. The letter was
forwarded by a man I keep in touch with my business and whereabouts, so
he can look after my interests. I've had no time to answer yet.

"I was going to write that I didn't know any one who cared to settle in
Texas; but now what if I wrote that I'd take the place and everything on
it off the fellow's hands myself?"

"I don't know what Texas is like," Annesley replied, coldly. "But
anything would be better than the life you're leading now."

"I wasn't intending to go alone," Knight reminded her. "I said, if you'd
stick by me, not throw me over altogether, I'd try and begin again. In
that case, Texas would do as well as anywhere; and the place and the
money are clean."

"How could I go with you, and live under the same roof, with everything
so changed?" the girl exclaimed. "It would kill me!"

"As bad as that?... Well, then, I must rack my brains for something else.
But I'm sorry this won't do. Would you care to live with Archdeacon
Smit