She motioned him off with an imperative gesture, which made him feel almost as if she had struck him. “Beg pardon,” he said, walking away from her. “I allus thought you’d have to pay it. Let me know when you hear from the bank.” He unhitched Whitey and drove away, while the deacon sat down upon the horse-block, white and trembling. “Connie,” he stammered, “it don’t seem right that you should pay, but you don’t know how it has troubled me since I knew the boy had nothing. It has kep’ me awake nights, for Mary and me is too old to find another place.” “Nor will you have to,” Connie answered. “The mine is paying well, and what is money good for except to help you, who have been so good to me? I’ve more than the mine. I am really quite a rich woman, thanks to you, who cared so well for my interests, restraining Auntie when she would have spent everything. I know all about it,—what leeches we were,—and wonder I had anything left. I am reaping the benefit of the mine investment.” The deacon could scarcely speak, except to call her “an angel of mercy.” And she was one, not only to him, but to Kitty, who was nearly frantic when she learned the state of affairs, and bills of every kind came in from Millville and Albany, Rocky Point and Boston and New York,—gambling debts with the rest, and some of a more questionable kind, which Kenneth promptly burned. “Let them sue,” he said; “they can get nothing.” “But the house and furniture,—how much is it all worth?” Connie asked. “You know I am a simpleton, and wholly ignorant of what is to be done. How much will free the house and give Kitty and baby a home?” Kenneth told her about how much, but added: “Kitty will have to live; the house will not support her.” Connie had not thought of that, and looked troubled until Kenneth, who had been thinking seriously on the matter for some days, said to her: “How would you like to live in the villa,—with me, I mean? We are to be married soon, and it would be better to have a home of our own than to stay with father and mother. Kitty and the baby can live with us.”