style="font-size:15px;"> "Have you quarrelled with George again?"
"He's told me he couldn't give me a bed for the night, which doesn't seem to point to our being on the best of terms."
There was a momentary pause before she spoke again; and then it was with quizzically uplifted eyebrows.
"More money, Sydney?"
He was silent. His hands in his jacket pockets, his feet a little apart, he stood and looked at her, something on his handsome face which seemed to have obscured its sunshine. When he spoke it was with what, coming from him, was very unusual bitterness.
"Vi, what's the use of this? I didn't want to let you know that I was coming; I didn't mean to let you know that I had come, because-what's the use of it?"
"What's the use of my loving you, do you mean? Well, for one thing, I thought that you loved me.
"An unlucky beggar who is always in a mess, and only scrambles out of one hole to get into another-what does his love matter to anyone?"
"I cannot tell you how much it matters to me. And, Sydney, doesn't my love matter to you?"
"Vi! you mustn't tempt me."
"How do you mean, tempt you?"
"If you only knew how I longed to take you in my arms, and keep you there. But what's the good of longing?"
"You can take me in your arms-and keep me there-for about ten seconds."
"Yes, I know; I know that you're a darling, the sweetest girl in the world, but what right have I to do it? What prospect have I of ever making you my wife? All debts, and nothing to pay them. What would your uncle say if he came upon us now? Wouldn't he warn me off the premises, as my brother has done? You know, my dear, you're not for such as I am. I don't want to say anything unkind, but don't you see, can't you see, that the only thing left for me to do is to withdraw and leave the field open for a better man?"
"Sydney, this time you must have come a cropper."
There was that in the girl's tone which, in spite of himself, brought a real smile to the young man's lips.
"I have. You're right. One which is going to make an end of me."
The girl shook her head gaily.
"Oh, no, it won't. I know you better. You've been coming croppers ever since I have known you, and that's all my life, some of them awful croppers; there must have been quite twenty from which you were never going to rise again. But you've managed, and you'll manage again. Only, really, I do wish you'd get out of the habit, if only for a while."
"Vi, you don't understand, this time you really don't. I'm done. I went to my brother as a last resource-you may be pretty sure it was a last resource-for the money which was the only thing that could save me. I am quite serious. He told me he would not give me so much as a sovereign; he even refused me a night's lodging. That means, as I tell you, that I'm done. I don't know quite what will happen to me, but something not pretty. When you and I meet again it is quite possible it will not be as equals; I shall be in a class of which you do not take social cognisance."
Again the young lady shook her head; if again it was with an attempt at gaiety, there was something which looked very much like tears in her eyes.
"What a cropper you must have come; it makes my blood run cold to hear you talking. Have you been robbing a bank?"
"I might as well have done. I'm likely to be in as awkward a position as if I had."
The girl looked at him steadily; his eyes met hers. Each might have been looking into the other's soul.
"Sydney, do you still love me?"
"Wouldn't it be better for you if I were to tell you straight out that I don't? Think, wouldn't it?"
"No, it wouldn't; it would be much worse. It would be a cowardly thing to say, and also, I happen to know, an untrue one. I know that you do still love me. I only asked you for the sake of hearing your answer. You do."
"It has become a habit."
"And habits are not things which are easily rooted up."
"So it would seem."
"I don't flatter myself that your love for me is such an important a factor in your life as I should like it to be, or you would keep clear of croppers. I don't think you are capable of very strong and enduring emotions where a woman is concerned; nowadays men aren't. But, in your own fashion, you love me all the same, and you'll keep on loving me. I know you. And it's a fashion with which I should be very well content if-"
"Yes, if; that's it-if! So what's the use?"
"You're frightfully selfish."
"Is that a new discovery? You've told me so-how many times? And now, when for the first time in my life I'm really generous, you say it again."
"But you're not generous; you're only considering yourself. You're more selfish than ever. You love me in your fashion, but you must remember that I love you in mine. I don't see myself how I'm going to marry you just yet awhile."
"Just yet awhile!"
"Yes, I said just yet awhile. But then, are you thinking of marrying someone else?"
"I shall never marry any other woman if I don't marry you. I'm not that kind of man."
"Precisely. I believe you. Nor am I that kind of girl. As I say, I may not be able to marry you just yet awhile, nor may I ever be able to marry you at all, but-it's you or no one. Sydney, whatever becomes of you, you will always be the only man in the world for me. You may come badly to grief; you may do things I would much rather you didn't do; you may make me suffer more than the average man makes the woman who loves him suffer; but I'd rather anything than lose you. Whatever may become of you, whatever you do, wherever you may be, be sure of one thing, always-that I love you. I'll make open confession. Sydney, I'd marry you to-morrow if you wished me. I don't think you're likely to, nor do I think that it would be good for either of us if you did, but-there's the truth. And that confession stands for always. In whatever plight you may find yourself, penniless and in rags-I'm only talking to suit your mood, you know-you have merely to say so that I can hear you, 'Come, let's marry,' and I'll be your wife, your glad and loving wife. Here's my hand on it, and my lips to boot if you'd like them, as soon as the thing may be."
CHAPTER III
"Stop, Thief!"
Since his brother had refused him hospitality; since Violet Forster had spoken such sweet words to him by the summer-house; since he had been thrown by his brother officers out of the room which he had regarded almost as his own-these things, to Sydney Beaton, seemed how many years ago? It was as though the Sydney Beaton that had been belonged to one world and the Sydney Beaton that was to another. And indeed that was the case. He had in truth passed from one world to another; out of a world in which it was all joy, into another in which it was all misery. But, instead of being divided by years from one another, it was only by days. It seemed incredible that so much could have happened to him in so short a time; but in cases such as his it is the incredible which happens. Scarcely more than four weeks ago, twenty-eight days, and already he was brought to this. During the last few days he had been practically penniless; now he was literally without a farthing, or the prospect of getting one, and it was November in London, one of those damp, cold, foggy,
