"But don't you see that I shouldn't, Josie?" He turned back to her side, looked down at her, pleaded his defence with the fire of desperation. "Just think: you are an only daughter." Just what this had to do with the case was not plain even to him. "An only daughter," he repeated-- "ah--not only your father's only daughter, but your mother's only daughter. Your father--ah--is my friend. How unfair it would be to him." But the girl interrupted with decision. "But papa wants you to... He told me so." He could only pretend not to understand. "But consider, Josie: you are rich, an heiress: I'm a poor man. Would you like it to be said I was after your money?" "No one would dare say such a thing," she asserted with profound conviction. "Oh, yes, they would. You don't know the world as I do. And for all you know, they might be right. How do you know that------" "Nat!" A catch in her voice stopped him. "Don't say such horrid things! I could tell: a woman always can. I know you would be incapable of such a thing. Papa knows it, too. No one has ever got ahead of papa, and _he_ says you are a fine, steady, Christian man, and he would rather see me your wife than any------"' "Josie!" The interjection was so imperative that she was silenced. "Why, what, Nat?" she asked, rising. "The time has come," he declared; "you must know the truth." "Oh, Nat!" "I'm _not_ what you think me," he continued, dramatic. _"Oh, Nat!"_ "Nor what your father thinks me, nor what anybody else in this town thinks me. I'm not a regular Christian--it's all a bluff: I didn't know anything about a church till I came here. I smoke and I drink and I swear and I gamble, and I only cut them all out in order to trick you into caring for me!" "Oh, Nat, I don't believe it." "Alas, Josie!" he protested violently, "it's true, only too true!" "But you did it to win my love, Nat?" "Ye-es." He saw suddenly that he had made a fatal mistake. "Then, Nat, I will be your wife in spite of all!" He found himself suddenly caught about the neck by the girl's arms. His head was drawn down until her cheek caressed his and he felt her lips warm upon his own. "Josie!" he gasped. "Nat, my darling!" With a supreme effort he pulled himself together and embraced the girl. "Josie," he said earnestly, "I--I'm going to try to be a good husband to you.... And that," he concluded, _sotto voce_, "wasn't in the agreement!" She held him to her passionately. "Dearest, I'm so glad!" "It makes me very happy to know you are, Josie," he murmured miserably. And to himself, while still she trembled in his embrace: "What a cur you are!... But I won't renege now; I'll play my hand out on the square, with her...." Upon this tableau there came a sudden intrusion. The back door opened and Graham came in, Kellogg at his heels. It was the voice of the latter that told the two they were discovered: a hearty "Hello! What's this?" that rang in Nat's ears like the trump of doom.