er downcast lashes she could see, thrown carelessly on the table, three
or four strips, tinted blue or green or yellow, which she recognized as
checks.

"I only want to say," she began, with a kind of panting in her
breath--"I only want to say, papa, that if ... Mr. Davenant will ...
lend you the money ... I shall be ... I shall be ... very glad."

Guion said nothing. His eyes, regarding her aslant, had in them the
curious receding light she had noticed once before. With a convulsive
clutching of the fingers he pulled the rug up about his chin. Davenant
stood as he had been standing when she came in, his arm resting on the
mantelpiece. When she looked at him with one hasty glance, she noticed
that he reddened hotly.

"I've changed my mind," she went on, impelled by the silence of the
other two to say something more. "I've changed my mind. It's because of
papa's clients--the Miss Rodmans and the others--that I've done it. I
couldn't help it. I never thought of them till this afternoon. I don't
know why. I've been very dense. I've been cruel. I've considered only
how we--papa and I--could exonerate ourselves, if you can call it
exoneration. I'm sorry."

"You couldn't be expected to think of everything at once, Miss Guion,"
Davenant said, clumsily.

"I might have been expected to think of this; but I didn't. I suppose
it's what you meant when you said that there were sides to the question
that I didn't see. You said it, too, papa. I wish you had spoken more
plainly."

"We talked it over, Miss Guion. We didn't want to seem to force you.
It's the kind of thing that's better done when it's done of one's own
impulse. We were sure you'd come to it. All the same, if you hadn't done
it to-day, we'd made up our minds to--to suggest it. That's why I took
the liberty of bringing these things. Those are bonds that you've got
your hand on--and the checks make up the sum total."

By an instinctive movement she snatched her fingers away; but,
recovering herself, she took the package deliberately into her hands and
stood holding it.

"I've been explaining to Davenant," Guion said, in a muffled voice,
"that things aren't quite so hopeless as they seem. If we ever come into
Aunt Vic's money--"

"But there's no certainty of that, papa."

"No certainty, but a good deal of probability. She's always given us to
understand that the money wouldn't go out of her own family; and there's
practically no one left now but you and me. And