She came back reluctantly, and stood with her hands clasped on the back of a chair, breathing quickly.
“Do you remember,” Donald asked, standing in front of her and speaking in a low, tense voice, “the last time we stood in this room, and the promises I made you? Well, I've kept them. I've fought like the devil,—You don't know what it means, you can't know. But I've kept them. Now I want to tell you that I've got to break over. You are right about the bank-stock money. It's not mine. I'll pay it back to-morrow. But more money has to come from somewhere to carry on the trial. There's only one chance I can think of. I've got to enter Lickety Split for the Derby.”
“No, you haven't! There are other ways. You must go to work.”
“Work!” he broke out fiercely. “Haven't I been trying to get a position ever since I came home? Who wants to tie up to me until this cursed case is decided? I have been trying to write, but my things come back faster than I can send them out. What am I good for? A game at billiards, sixty miles an hour in a motor car, a lark with any idler that happens in the club. Bah! I'm sick of having people patronize me because I am not in the game, because I've never earned a penny, except by gambling, in my life!”
“But that's all behind you, Don! You've got the rest of your life to live differently. When the case is decided—”
“Yes, and suppose it goes against me? It did before, it may again. Talk about justice and truth! I've failed to find them. I've had enough of this glorious thing called life; I'm ready to quit.”
“You can't quit, Don!” She said it softly, with the firelight flushing her eager, solicitous face. “Don't you suppose we all want to quit sometimes? We've just got to take a fresh grip on our courage and fight it out. I'm in trouble myself, to-night, Don. Will you help me?”
His eyes flew to hers as he half knelt on the chair before her.
“I've sold Thornwood,” she went on, her lips trembling. “I can hardly speak of it, even yet. I feel like a traitor to Daddy, to all the Carseys who ever lived here, to myself! You know what the place means to me. I believe I should die if I ever saw any one else living here! I don't know who bought it, I don't want to know. All I know is that I've been perfectly wretched every hour since I signed the paper, until just now when the Doctor offered to lend you the money. Oh! Don, if I thought selling Thornwood meant that we could help clear your name, there'd never be another instant of regret! You'll let us help you?”
He put up his hand as if to ward off a blow: “Don't,” he said harshly. “I can't take your help. I can't even take your friendship, or the Doctor's. Don't you see that I'm going through hell? Don't you know that I love you?”