idiot! And on a salary of a
thousand dollars a year!"

"I suppose Di would help me; but I couldn't explain." The weak face
puckered, a lifeless kind of tear gathered in the ox-like eyes.

"Yes, she probably would help you. She'd probably give you all she's
saved to go to Europe with and study, saved from her pictures sold at
twenty per cent of their value; and she'd mortgage the little income
she's got to keep her brother out of jail. Of course she would, and of
course you ought to be ashamed of yourself for thinking of it." Rawley
lighted his cigar and smoked fiercely.

"It would be better for her than my going to jail," stubbornly replied
the other. "But I don't want to tell her, or to ask her for money.
That's why I've come to you. You needn't be so hard, Flood; you've not
been a saint; and Di knows it."

Rawley took the cheroot from his mouth, threw back his head, and laughed
mirthlessly, ironically. Then suddenly he stopped and looked round the
room till his eyes rested on a portrait-drawing which hung on the wall
opposite the window, through which the sun poured. It was the face of a
girl with beautiful bronzed hair, and full, fine, beautifully modelled
face, with brown eyes deep and brooding, which seemed to have time and
space behind them--not before them. The lips were delicate and full, and
had the look suggesting a smile which the inward thought has stayed. It
was like one of the Titian women--like a Titian that hangs on the wall
of the Gallery at Munich. The head and neck, the whole personality,
had an air of distinction and destiny. The drawing had been done by a
wandering duchess who had seen the girl sketching in the foothills,
when on a visit to that "Wild West" which has such power to refine
and inspire minds not superior to Nature. Its replica was carried to a
castle in Scotland. It had been the gift of Diana Welldon on a certain
day not long ago, when Flood Rawley had made a pledge to her, which was
as vital to him and to his future as two thousand dollars were vital to
Dan Welldon now.

"You've not been a saint, and Di knows it," repeated the weak brother
of a girl whose fame belonged to the West; whose name was a signal for
cheerful looks; whose buoyant humour and impartial friendliness gained
her innumerable friends; and whose talent, understood by few, gave her
a certain protection, lifting her a little away from the outwardly crude
and provincial life around her.

When Rawley spoke, it was