The young woman had risen and her color was coming and going in hot little flashes. “You think because I am my father’s daughter you are safe in saying anything you please, and in going on in any hard-hearted way you choose! It is what I might have expected of a man who would deny his only sister her one little chance of happiness. You are worse than other men, because you know the right way and you won’t walk in it!” He sprang up suddenly and caught her hands in both of his. “You are right, Vinnie; I do know better. Every word you have been saying has cut like a knife!” he burst out, smashing all the barriers of insincerity at a single blow. “I know where I stand, and what I’ve been doing, and I have been a conscious hypocrite every time I have pleaded the way of the world as my excuse. But a man _must_ be loyal to something. For the obligation, the immense obligation, I owe your father. I have put my hands between his knees as the old-time vassals used to do, and sworn to make his cause my cause. He knows about that bad tunnel roof; knows more than I do; and when I spoke to him, he told me to forget it. I can’t be disloyal to him--and keep even a thief’s sense of honor!” She released her hands quickly. It was early for any of the porch loungers to be out, but they were standing fairly in front of the lobby windows. “That is better; much better,” she commended with a little sigh. “I thought you were gone, David; honestly, I was afraid that the good old David I used to know and--and think a lot of--was dead and buried--and it hurt me as much as it would if you had been my own brother. Now, if I could only forget what happened last night----” “You may set your mind at rest about Strayer,” he put in quickly. “He won’t die; and he wasn’t assaulted, as you seem to think he was, though I won’t say what might or might not have happened in another minute or two. He was testing the bad roof with the point of an iron bar, and a loose rock came down upon his head.” “But now you will pull the roof down, or timber it, or do whatever is needful to make it safe?” she said, half pleading with him. “No; my hands are tied, too. I can’t saddle the company with the added expense after your father has told me in so many words to let it alone. Neither must I let Lushing find out and force it upon him if I can help it. We must just trust to luck, Vinnie; there is no help for it.” “There is going to be help for it,” she asserted, with true Grillage resolution. Then: “One more word before you go, David: you won’t fi--quarrel with Mr. Lushing again?”