"'"Roger, get up and dress yourself," said she. "We will go and see your partners to-night. We will go together, for I am as guilty as you. We will tell them the truth and beg for time. Maybe we can get the money." "'We started in our motor-car about one o'clock for the city, on dark and muddy roads. Some ten miles out we broke an axle and left car and driver and went on afoot. My wife wouldn't wait. No trains were running. But we could get a trolley five miles down the road. So we went on in the dark and silence. I put my arm around her, and not a word passed between us for an hour or so. I don't know what she was thinking of, but I was trying to count my follies. It began to rain, and I felt sorry for Bess, and took off my coat and threw it over her.' "'"I don't mind the rain," she said. "It will cool me." "'We were a sight when we got to the trolley, and just before daylight we rang the bell of the senior partner. Our weariness and muddy shoes and rain-soaked garments were a help to us. They touched his heart, sir. Anyhow, he gave me a week of grace in which to make good. I must get the money somehow, and I want your advice about it.' "'I'm glad of one part of it all,' I said--'that you have discovered each other and learned that you are human beings of a pretty good sort. I've much more respect for both of you than I ever had before.' "He looked at me in surprise. "'Oh, you are a better man than you were three months ago!' I answered him. 'You happen to have run against the law, and it's shocked and frightened you. But you are improving. Long ago you began to incur debts which you couldn't pay, and you must have known that you couldn't pay them. In that manner you became possessed of a large sum of money belonging to other people. It was used not for necessities, but to maintain a foolish display. That is the most heartless kind of fraud. I've much more respect for you now that you see your fault and confess it. I'm convinced now that you have a conscience, and that you will be likely to make some use of it in the future. I'm particularly grateful to your wife. She has shown me that she is just a woman, and not an angel. I don't believe that it was at all necessary for you to have groveled in aristocratic crimes in order to win her heart. The yacht cruise and the tandem and the violets and the Fifth Avenue clothes and the ton of candy were quite superfluous. You needed only to tell her the truth, like a man, and say that you loved her.' "'It is true, Roger,' said the girl as she broke down again. "'I did it all to please you, dear,' the boy answered, in his effort to comfort her. "'And it did please me,' she said, brokenly, 'but I know that I should have been better pleased if--' "She hesitated, and I expressed her thought for her: "'If he had centralized on manhood. There is something sweeter than violets and grander than fine raiment in a sort of character that a boy should offer to the girl he loves.'