a month. Then I get my money from
Carrie Horsley and Mrs. Crombie. They owe me seventy dollars between
them for their summer suits. I've got several orders, but folks are
tight here for money, and it's always a matter of waiting."

"Can't you get an advance from 'em?"

That frightened look suddenly leaped again into the girl's eyes.

"Oh, Will!"

"Oh, don't start that game!" the man retorted savagely. "We've got to
live, I s'pose. You'll earn the money. That sort of thing is done in
every business. You make me sick." He lit his pipe and blew great
clouds of smoke across the table. "I tell you what it is, we can't
afford to keep your brother doing nothing all the time. If you insist
on keeping him you must find the money--somewhere. It's no use being
proud. We're hard up, and if people owe you money, well--dun 'em for
it. I don't know how it is, but this darned business of yours seems to
have gone to pieces."

"It's not gone to pieces, Will," Eve protested. "I've made more money
this last four months than ever before." The girl's manner had a
patience in it that came from her brief but bitter experiences.

"Then what's become of the money?"

But Eve's patience had its limits. The cruel injustice of his sneering
question drove her beyond endurance.

"Oh, Will," she cried, "and you can sit there and ask such a
question! Where has it gone?" She laughed without any mirth. "It's
gone with the rest, down at the saloon, where you've gambled it
away. It's gone because I've been a weak fool and listened to your
talk of gambling schemes which have never once come off. Oh, Will, I
don't want to throw this all up at you. Indeed, indeed, I don't. But
you drive me to it with your unkindness, which--which I can't
understand. Don't you see, dear, that I want to make you happy,
that I want to help you? You must see it, and yet you treat me
worse--oh, worse than a nigger! Why is it? What have I done? God
knows you can have all, everything I possess in the world. I would do
anything for you, but--but--you---- Sometimes I think you have
learned to hate me. Sometimes I think the very sight of me rouses
all that is worst in you. What is it, dear? What is it that has
come between us? What have I done to make you like this?"

She paused, her eyes full of that pain and misery which her tongue
could never adequately express. She wanted to open her heart to him,
to let him see all the gold of her feelings for him, but his moody
unrespo