present
generation--that a young man intending to marry ought to be able to
give as much as he asks. You haven't made a very good beginning."

I admitted it; admitted everything save the imputation that my
relations with Agatha Geddis had been in any sense wilfully immoral.

He gave a wry smile at this, as if the distinction were finely drawn
and the credit small.

"Because it fell to my lot to be a schoolmaster in her native town, I
had an opportunity of observing Miss Geddis while she was yet only a
young girl, Bertrand," he remarked. "She gave promise, even then, of
becoming a disturbing element in the affairs of men. As a school-girl
she had a following of silly boys who were ready to take her at her own
valuation of herself. There are times when you remind me very strongly
of one of them, though the resemblance is only a suggestion: the boy I
speak of was a bright young fellow named Weyburn, who afterward became
a clerk in Mr. Geddis's bank."

There are moments when the promptings of the panic-stricken ostrich lay
hold upon the best of us. Since I could not thrust my head into the
sand, I wheeled quickly to stare at a framed photograph of Bull
Mountain and the buildings of the Little Clean-Up hanging on the
laboratory wall.

"He was one of the fools, too, was he?" I said, without taking my eyes
from the photograph.

"He turned out badly, I am sorry to say, and I have often wondered if
the young woman was not in some way responsible. There was a
defalcation in Geddis's bank, and Weyburn was found guilty and sent to
the penitentiary."

Here was another of the paper life-walls. One little touch would have
punctured it and vague recollection would instantly become complete
recognition. I held my breath for fear I might unconsciously give the
rending touch. But Everton's return to the question at issue turned
the danger of recognition aside.

"To get back to the present time, and your plea for a rehearing," he
went on. "I wish to be entirely fair to you, Bertrand; as fair as I
can be without being unfair to Polly. Barrett told me yesterday
afternoon that you had gone, or were going, to the Pacific Coast. I am
taking it for granted that you had no intention of accompanying this
woman?"

"I certainly had not. Nothing was further from my intentions. On the
other hand, her flight last night with another woman's husband is the
one thing that makes it possible for me to be here to-day."

"You can