of a benefactor he was dishonoring them.  Yet it was Carter he must meet first; he must confess all to him.  He must go back to the hotel—­that hotel where he had indignantly left her, and tell the father he was a fraud.  It was terrible to think of; perhaps it was part of that money curse that he could not get rid of, and was now realizing; but it must be done.  He was simple, but his very simplicity had that unhesitating directness of conclusion which is the main factor of what men call “pluck.”

He turned back to the hotel and entered the office.  But Mr. Carter had not yet returned.  What was to be done?  He could not wait there; there was no time to be lost; there was only one other person who knew his expectations, and to whom he could confide his failure—­it was Kitty.  It was to taste the dregs of his humiliation, but it must be done.  He ran up the staircase and knocked timidly at the sitting-room door.  There was a momentary pause, and a weak voice said “Come in.”  Barker opened the door; saw the vision of a handkerchief thrown away, of a pair of tearful eyes that suddenly changed to stony indifference, and a graceful but stiffening figure.  But he was past all insult now.

“I would not intrude,” he said simply, “but I came only to see your father.  I have made an awful blunder—­more than a blunder, I think—­a fraud.  Believing that I was rich, I purchased your father’s claim for my partners, and gave him my promissory note.  I came here to give him back his claim—­for that note can never be paid!  I have just been to the bank; I find I have made a stupid mistake in the name of the shares upon which I based my belief in my wealth.  The ones I own are worthless—­am as poor as ever—­I am even poorer, for I owe your father money I can never pay!”

To his amazement he saw a look of pain and scorn come into her troubled eyes which he had never seen before.  “This is a feeble trick,” she said bitterly; “it is unlike you—­it is unworthy of you!”

“Good God!  You must believe me.  Listen! it was all a mistake—­a printer’s error.  I read in the paper that the stock for the First Extension mine had gone up, when it should have been the Second.  I had some old stock of the First, which I had kept for years, and only thought of when I read the announcement in the paper this morning.  I swear to you—­”

But it was unnecessary.  There was no doubting the truth of that voice—­that manner.  The scorn fled from Miss Kitty’s eyes to give place to a stare, and then suddenly changed to two bubbling blue wells of laughter.  She went to the window and laughed.  She sat down to the piano and laughed.  She caught up the handkerchief, and hiding half her rosy face in it, laughed.  She finally collapsed into an easy chair, and, burying her brown head in its cushions, laughed long and confidentially until she brought up suddenly against a sob.  And then was still.