Leonard shook his head. “I thought that was the way the wind lay,” he said sagaciously. “Don't do it,” he added tersely, after a pause. “Take an old fool's advice--don't do it. I think you would only live to regret having sold yourself into bondage. That is what it would amount to in your case. You are not built upon rough enough lines, I know, not to care at having your poverty sneered at and constantly thrown in your face. It is a puzzle to me how any man with any sense of independence and honor can sell himself, as some men do; and it is beyond my understanding how _you_, with your fine feelings and high ideal of manhood, ever thought of such a thing.” This was certainly rubbing it in, Dar-ley thought. But, then, Leonard was such an exceptionally odd fellow, with his one-man-in-a-million code of chivalry and his ethical eccentricities. Still, Darley shrunk at the castigation, because he knew that the feelings that prompted it were sincere. “But I am terribly in debt, Jack,” he said, almost deprecatingly. “What is there left for me to do?” “What is there left? The opportunity to fight it out!” retorted Leonard. “Retrench. In a year, or two at most, unless you are _hopelessly_ insolvent, if you live without the profitless pleasures that have brought you to this pass, you can come out triumphantly independent.” Darley shook his head. “I am afraid I could not stand the strain, Jack,” he answered, almost sadly. “A fellow of your caliber might. How is it, by the way, that you yourself are still in single harness?” Leonard was silent, gazing in the coals with almost a melancholy air. “Perhaps I should not say so,” he said at last, “yet you have been so frank with me; but I do not like the subject when applied to myself. However, there is but one answer, which is embodied in that one word that hangs like a pall before the eyes of the young literary aspirant--_refused_. I shall always be single, Darley. Always the same old solitary sixpence, with my rods and guns and dogs and books. Not bad companions, all of them, when used well--faithful, too. Eh, Rosy?” The beautiful hound addressed raised her head and looked pathetically at her master, rubbing her nose in a sympathetic way against his leg. Darley felt deeply interested. “What was the trouble, old fellow?” he ventured. “The whole story is contained in that one word--refused. I never cared for but one woman; and _she_ did not care for me--at least, not enough to marry. Which was, after all, the most natural thing in the world, I suppose. I could not blame her, could I, since I would only marry for love myself? It is not much of a story, is it?” “On the contrary, I think there is a great deal in it!” answered Darley, warmly. “I think I see that you loved this woman as only men with hearts like yours can love--once and for all.”