“I looked at the young man, he looked at me, and we recognized each other.
“‘Susie!’
“‘Richard!”
“Formerly, as children, we had often played together and were great friends. Seven or eight years before this meeting he had been sent to Europe to finish his education. We shook hands; his father made me sit down, and asked what had brought me. He listened to my tale; and replied:
“‘You would require twenty or thirty thousand dollars. No one would lend you such a sum upon the uncertain chances of a very complicated lawsuit. If you are in difficulties; if you need assistance—’
“‘It is not that, father. That is not what Miss Percival asks.’
“‘I know that very well, but what she asks is impossible.’
“He rose to let me out. Then the sense of my helplessness overpowered me for the first time since my father’s death. I burst into a violent flood of tears. An hour later Richard Scott was with me.
“‘Susie,’ he said, ‘promise to accept what I am going to offer.’
“I promised him.