"No," said Brown; "don't be insulting. But I know that she keeps herself
secluded, and that her looks and spirits are dreadfully changed. If she
cared nothing for you, she knows society would cheerfully forgive her if
she were to show it."

"I wish to Satan that I hadn't met _you_, then," said the major. "I've
taken solid comfort in the thought that most likely she was again the
adored of all adorers, and was forgetting me, as she has so good a right
to do."

"Major," said Brown, bringing his hand down on the major's shoulder in a
manner suggestive of a deputy sheriff, "you ought to go back to that
girl!"

"And fail," suggested the major. "Thank you; and allow me to say you're
a devilish queer fellow for suggesting it. Is it part of your religion
to forgive a successful rival?"

"It's part of my religion, when I love, to love the woman more than I
love myself," said Brown, with a face in which pain and earnestness
strove for the mastery. "She loves you. I loved her, and want to see her
happy."

The defaulter grasped the student's hand.

"Brown," said he, "you're one of God's noblemen; _she_ told me so once,
but I didn't imagine then that I'd ever own up to it myself. It can't be
done, though; she can't marry a man in disgrace--I can't ask a woman to
marry me on nothing; and, besides, there's the matter of those infernal
bonds. I _can't_ clear that up, and keep out of the sheriff's fingers."

"I can," said Brown.

"How?" asked the ex-broker, with staring eyes.

"I'll lend the money."

The major dropped Brown's hand.

"You heavenly lunatic!" said he. "I always _did_ think religion made
fools of men when they got too much of it. Then I could go back on the
Street again; the boys would be glad to see me clear myself--not
meeting my engagements wouldn't be remembered against me. But,
say--borrow money from an old rival to make myself right with the girl
_he_ loved! No, excuse me. I've got _some_ sense of honor left!"

"You mean you love yourself more than you do her," suggested Brown.
"I'll telegraph about the money, and you write her in the meantime.
Don't ruin her happiness for life by delay or trifling."

The major became a business man again.

"Brown," said he, "I'll take your offer; and, whatever comes of it,
you'll have one friend you can swear to as long as I live. You haven't
the money with you?"

"No," said Brown; "but you shall have it in a fortnight. I'll telegraph
about it, and go East and