"Oh!" she exclaimed, on seeing him, "so dinner is not ready? Mr. Frazier could not stop. He is working hard to keep the sheriff off my brothers' track. He says when he left town Tobe Keith was just the same. The doctors at Carlin are afraid to probe for the--the ball. They have held a consultation, and agreed that the great specialist, Doctor Elliot of Atlanta, might operate and save him. They refuse to undertake it themselves." "Then this Doctor Elliot ought to come and see him," Charles said. "But Doctor Elliot is so busy that he never leaves Atlanta, except in instances where enormous fees are paid. The Carlin doctors say that Tobe ought to be taken to him. They say it would be safe to move him that distance." "Then he must be moved," said Charles. "Yes, he must go," Mary agreed. "The only thing is that it will cost considerable. You see, Tobe and his mother (she is a widow) are awfully poor. Yes, the money must be gotten up, and I must get it." "You?" Charles cried. "Why should you?" "Because no one else will do it. Even my father has the silly idea that we ought not to have anything to do with it, because it would look as if we admitted the boys' guilt. That is rubbish. A man's life--three lives--are at stake. Yes, I must raise four hundred dollars. They say it will cost that much, including transportation, nurses, and the like. I may be able to borrow it from some one, but we are hard run. Father is over his head in debt. I know where I can get the money--in fact, it has been offered to me already--but I don't like to take it. I have my reasons for--for not _wanting_ to take it." "It was offered you this morning--not many minutes ago," Charles said, fiercely and impulsively. She looked up in mild surprise at his tone and the rebellious glare in his eyes, and then said, slowly and wonderingly: "Why do you think _that_?" "I don't know, but I am sure of it," he blurted from the depths of his restrained passion. "Something tells me that this Mr. Frazier wants to furnish it, and also that you shrink from being in his debt." Mary avoided his desperate gaze. "You are a great reader of minds," she faltered. "Many men would make me angry by saying what you are saying, but I can't be offended with you. It is strange, but nothing you could do or say would annoy me. Well, you are right. As I told you once, Mr. Frazier and I are not actually engaged. Somehow, I want to be free in that way a little longer. I'm so young, you know, that marriage does not appeal to me yet. Mr. Frazier has helped my father raise money in several instances, but I have never felt that those transactions bound me in any way; but I know, and he feels, that this particular offer of his--" Her voice sank and trailed away into inaudibility. "That if you accepted this offer it would be binding?" Charles threw into the gap.