aking you 'sight unseen,' old man," he said, with the brotherly
affection which came so easily to the front in all his dealings with
me. "If you tell me it's done and over with, and won't be resurrected,
that's the end of it, so far as I am concerned. What comes next?"

"A little heart-to-heart talk with Polly's father," I said, and began
to move toward the door. But he stopped me before I could get away.

"Just one other word, Jimmie: wouldn't it be better to let things rock
along for awhile until the dust has time to settle and the smoke to
blow away? You've come back red-handed from this thing--whatever it
is--and----"

"No," I returned obstinately. "It is now or never for me, Bob. I'm
sinking deeper into the mire every day, and Polly has the only rope
that will pull me out. You'll say that I am much more likely to drag
her in; maybe that is true, but just now I'm like a drowning man.
Possibly it would be better for all concerned if I should drown, but
you can't expect me to take that view of it." And with that I crossed
the corridor to the laboratory.

I can say for Phineas Everton that he was at all times and in all
things a fair man, generous to a fault, and always ready to give the
other fellow the benefit of the doubt. I sought him that afternoon
with an explanation which was very far from explaining, but he listened
patiently and with an evident desire to draw favorable inferences where
he could from my somewhat vague story of my entanglement with Agatha
Geddis.

It was perfectly apparent to me that I was not making the story very
clear to him; I couldn't, because any complete explanation would have
reached back too far into my past. The half-confidence was
inexcusable, and I was aware of this. I owed this man, whose daughter
I wished to marry, the fullest and frankest statement of all the facts.
But I didn't give it to him.

"You are trying to tell me that the affair with this woman had its
origin in a former foolish infatuation?" he said at length.

"It might be called that; but it dates back to my--to a time long
before I came to Cripple Creek."

"You gave me to understand yesterday that she had a hold of some sort
upon you. Were you under promise to marry her?"

"No, indeed; never in this world!"

He was sitting back in his chair and regarding me gravely.

"I am an old-fashioned man, Bertrand, as I told you yesterday. I have
always entertained an idea--which may seem archaic to the