if it _should_ come to
us, there'd be more than enough to--to square everything. You'd do it,
dear, wouldn't you, if Aunt Vic were to leave the whole thing to you? I
think she's as likely to do that as not."

"Mr. Davenant must know already that I shall give my whole life to
trying to pay our debt. If there's anything I could sign at once--"

Davenant moved from the fireside. "There's nothing to sign, Miss Guion,"
he said, briefly. "The matter is ended as far as I'm concerned. Mr.
Guion has got the money, and is relieved from his most pressing
embarrassments. That's all I care about. There's no reason why we should
ever speak of it again. If you'll excuse me now--"

He turned toward the couch with his hand outstretched, but during the
minute or two in which Olivia and he had been facing each other Guion
had drawn the rug over his face. Beneath it there was a convulsive
shaking, from which the younger man turned away. With a nod of
comprehension to Olivia he tiptoed softly from the room. As he did so he
could see her kneel beside the couch and kiss the hand that lay outside
the coverlet.

She overtook him, however, when he was downstairs picking up his hat and
stick from the hall table.

She stood on the lowest step of the stairs, leaning on the low, white
pillar that finished the balustrade. He was obliged to pass her on his
way to the door. The minute was the more awkward for him owing to the
fact that she did not take the initiative in carrying it off. On the
contrary, she made it harder by looking at him gravely without speaking.

"It's relief," he said, nodding with understanding toward the room
up-stairs. "I've seen men do that before--after they'd been facing some
danger or other with tremendous pluck."

He spoke for the sake of saying something, standing before her with his
hat and stick in his hand, not seeing precisely how he was to get away.

"It's a relief to me, too," she said, simply. "You can't imagine what
it's been the last few days--seeing things go to pieces like that. Now,
I suppose, they'll hold together somehow, though it can't be very well.
I dare say you think me all wrong--"

He shook his head.

"I couldn't see any other way. When you've done wrong as we've done it,
you'd rather be punished. You don't want to go scot-free. It's something
like the kind of impulse that made the hermits and ascetics submit to
scourging. But it's quite possible that I shouldn't have had the courage
to go