do to bring her to her
senses," the money-lender proposed, with a smirk which twisted his
sallow visage into a grimace. "If you can bring her to reason, we'll
both get--get what's due us."

"All right," Henley said, in a tone of gratitude. "You come on over in a
minute. I'll tell her I've heard of your offer, and that I won't stand
anymore foolishness."

Henley sauntered back to the store. His face was set and colorless as he
approached Dixie. She glanced up, and he was shocked by the look of
despair in her great, sorrowful eyes.

"He's coming over," Henley said. "Everything is cocked and primed. He
thinks you may take his money--he thinks I'm going to _make_ you do it.
You needn't talk much, but stick to it that you want his offer writ down
in black and white and will have it before you'll move a peg. I'll write
it and have it ready for him to sign. If he does, we are solid; if not,
we are lost. I don't know that I ever tackled anything quite as ticklish
as this, for he is as wary and sly as a fox. We mustn't give 'im time to
think, if we can help it. Sh! there he is now. Don't mind anything I
say, no matter how harsh it sounds--remember, I'm working for your good,
and using fire to stop fire."

She nodded and smiled knowingly, but said nothing, for the money-lender
was approaching. When Welborne was quite near, Henley suddenly said
aloud: "You are a woman, but I ain't going to stand any more
foolishness. You've been saying all this time that you can't get the
money, and yet here is a cash offer of eight hundred dollars staring you
smack-dab in the face."

"I never had the offer until this morning," Dixie said, with what he
recognized as astonishing diplomacy. Her face was out of sight under the
hood of her sunbonnet, her handkerchief to her eyes.

"She's willing to do what's right," Henley said to Welborne. "The only
thing she holds out for is to have the proposition down in writing. Of
course, there is no need of it, but women know nothing about business,
and will have every detail carried out, and so I scratched it down here.
It is a plain give-or-take offer of eight hundred dollars either way,
and she ain't in no fix to refuse."

Henley dipped a pen in the ink and held the paper toward the old man.
There was an incipient wave of innate distrust in Welborne's manner as
he glanced from the bowed form of the girl to that of the waiting
storekeeper.

"Let her have her way about it," Henley advised. "Women wi