Algy's weak mouth shook and his eyes filled; he turned away and stared out of the window. "He better have offered to lend her some money than me," he said. "I bet he's glad she's dead." (Dr. Lavendar thought of Alex.) "He wants to help you now for her sake," he said. "I don't want his money," the younger man insisted, brokenly; "he let her die." "I think that it would please her to have you take it." "I don't want to be under obligations to those people," Algernon said, doggedly. "If Mr. Gordon has your note, it's business." Algy hesitated. "I suppose he thinks I'd never pay it back?" "If he takes your note, it looks as if he expected to be repaid." "It's treating me white, I'll say that," Algernon said. And again his face reddened slowly to his forehead and he would not meet Dr. Lavendar's eye. "But I don't want their favors," he cried, threateningly. "It's business, if you give your note," Dr. Lavendar repeated. "Come, Algernon, let her father do something for her sake. And as for you--it's a chance to play the man; don't you see that?" Algy caught his breath. "Damn!--if I borrowed his money I'd pay it--I'd pay it, if it took the blood out of me." "I will make your feeling clear to him," Dr. Lavendar said. "Let's make out the note now, Algy." The old man got up and hunted about for pen and paper. "Here's a prescription blank," he said; "that will do." An ink-bottle stood on the narrow mantel-shelf, a rusty pen corroding in its thickening depths; but Dr. Lavendar, in a very small, shaky old hand, managed to scrawl that "Algernon Keen, for value received, promised to pay to John Gordon--" --"in a year," Algy broke in; "I ain't going to have it run but a year--and put in the interest, sir. I'll have no favors from 'em. I'll pay interest; I'll pay six per cent.--like anybody else would." --"and interest on same," Dr. Lavendar added. "Now, you sign here, Algy. There! that will please Mary." "Oh, my!" said Algernon, his poor, red-rimmed eyes filling--"oh, my! my! what will I do without her?" V The next day Dr. Lavendar carried the note back to old John Gordon, who took it, his mouth tightening, and glanced at it in silence. Then he shuffled over to a safe in the corner of his library and pulled out a japanned tin box. Dr. Lavendar watched him fumble with the combination lock, holding the box up to catch the light, and shaking it a little until the lid clicked open. "He'll never pay it," John Gordon said. "He'll try to," Dr. Lavendar said; "but it's doubtful, of course. He's a sickly fellow, and he hasn't much gumption. But if there's any good in him, your trusting him will bring it out." "There isn't any good in him," the other said, violently. And that was the last they said about it; for the time Algernon Keen dropped out of their lives.