“Oh, Mr. Atwood,” burst out Mildred impetuously, “this would be far better than saving me from prison.  I would pay you back every penny if I toiled all my life, and if papa could be his old self once more we would soon regain all that we have lost.”  Then a sudden passion of sobs shook her slight form.  “Oh,” she gasped brokenly, “I could die—­I could suffer anything to save papa.”

“Mr. Wentworth,” said the wife, with a look in her large tearless blue eyes which they never forgot, “we will live in one room, we’ll spend only enough for bare existence, if you’ll help us in this matter.”  Then putting her arms around Roger’s neck she buried her face on his breast and murmured, “You are like a son to me, and all there is left of my poor crushed heart clings to you.  If I could see Martin the man he was, I could die in peace.”

“He shall have the chance of the best and richest,” said Roger brokenly.  “I ask nothing better than to have a hand in saving such a man as Mr. Jocelyn must have been.”

Then was Roger’s hour and opportunity, and he might at that time have bound Mildred to him by vows that the girl would sooner perish than break.  Indeed in her abounding gratitude, and with every generous, unselfish chord in her soul vibrating, even his eyes could have been deceived, and he might easily have believed that he had won her heart.  But there was neither policy nor calculation in his young enthusiasm.  His love truly prompted his heart, but it was a heart abounding in good, unselfish impulses, if sufficient occasion called them forth.  He loved Mrs. Jocelyn and Belle scarcely less than his own mother and sister, and yet with a different affection, a more ideal regard.  They appealed to his imagination; their misfortunes made them sacred in his eyes, and aroused all the knightly instincts which slumber in every young, unperverted man.  Chief of all, they belonged to Mildred, the girl who had awakened his manhood, and to whom he had felt, even when she was so cold and prejudiced, that he owed his larger life and his power to win a place among men.  Now that she was so kind, now that she was willing to be aided by him in her dearest hopes, he exulted, and life grew rich in tasks for which the reward seemed boundless.  The hope would come to him, as Mildred rose to say good-by with a look that he had never seen on any human face before, that she might soon give him something warmer and better than gratitude; but if she could not soon, he would wait, and if she never could return his love, he proposed to be none the less loyal as a friend.