"I only know I must have it," he said; "or I don't see any resource for me except to cut my throat." "No, no," returned his mother, "do not say such dreadful things. Give me time. I will try to find some way of helping you by the time you must have the money. O my boy, my boy!" she covered her face with her hands and sobbed. George Dallas looked at her irresolutely, then came quickly towards her, and leaned over her, as she sat. "Mother," he said, in low hurried tones, "mother, trust me once more, little as I deserve it. Try to help me in this matter; it is life or death to me; and I will try and do better. I am sick of it all; sick of my own weakness above and more than all. But I am irretrievably ruined if I don't get this money. I am quite in Routh's power--and--and--I want to get out of it." She looked up curiously at him. Something in the way he said those words at once alarmed and reassured her. "In this man's power, George? How? To what extent?" "I cannot tell you, mother; you would not understand. Don't frighten yourself about it. It is nothing that money cannot settle. I have had a lesson now. You shake your head--well, I know I have had many before, but I _will_ learn from this one." "I have not the money, George," his mother repeated, "and I cannot possibly procure it for a little time. You must not stay here." "I know, I know," he retorted. "You need not re-echo Mr. Carruthers's interdict. I am going; but surely you can give me a little now; the price of one of these things would go a long way with me." As he spoke, he touched, with no rough hand, her earrings and the bracelets on her right arm. "They are family jewels, or you should have them, George," Mrs. Carruthers said in a sad voice. "Give me time, and I will make up the money for you. I have a little I can give you." She stood up and looked fixedly at him, her hands resting on his shoulder. The tall and powerful young man, with his haggard anxious face, his hardened look, his shabby careless dress, offered a strange contrast to the woman, whose beauty time had dealt with so lightly, and fortune so generously. Mrs. Carruthers had been a mere girl when her son was born, and probably had not been nearly so beautiful as now, when the calm dignity of position and the power of wealth lent all their attractions to her perfect face and form. The habitual seriousness of her expression was but a charm the more, and in moments of excited feeling like the present she regained the lustrous brilliancy of the past. Searchingly, fondly, she gazed into her son's face, as though reading it for traces of the truth of his promises, seeing in it but too surely indications of the weary, unsatisfying life he had led, the life which had brought disappointment to all her dearest maternal hopes. Steadily and tenderly he looked at her, a world of regret in his eyes. While they stood thus in brief silence, Mrs. Brookes came in hurriedly.