"Then you are young enough to change your mind and recognize the dignity of labor," Darrin continued. "You are also young enough and, unless I mistake you, bright enough to win a very good place in life for yourself. And you are man enough, now you have had time to think it over, to see the wickedness of destroying yourself. Man, make yourself instead."
"I'll do it! I will make myself!" promised the stranger, with a new outburst of emotion.
"And you will never again allow yourself to become so downcast that you will seek to destroy yourself?"
"Never!"
"I am satisfied," Dave said gravely. "You are a man of honor, and therefore are incapable of breaking your word. Your hand!"
Their hands met in ardent clasp. Then Darrin took out his card case, tendering his card to the stranger.
Instantly the young man produced his own card case, and extended a bit of pasteboard, murmuring:
"I am M. le Comte de Surigny, of Lyons, France."
It was too dark to read the cards there, but Dave gave his own name, and again the young men shook hands.
"But I am forgetting my comrade," Dave cried suddenly. "He was to return in a few minutes, and will not know where to find me."