“You think I got it easy--got it for the asking, and that's why you have been loafing on the job,” he said, with bitterness. “Ask my uncle for money? I should say not. He never loosened for anybody yet--not even his relatives. Mrs. Kilgour, I love your daughter so much--I was so anxious to help you--I stole that five thousand from the state treasury. I have been covering it in my accounts for more than a year--hell all the time with plenty of white-hot when the legislative committee has been over the accounts. Some day some blasted fool will wake up enough to see that there's a hole in my figures.” He put his elbows on his knees and stared at the carpet. The woman's face grew white. “That's how it stands with me, Mrs. Kilgour. You know you were not square with me at the start. You said you needed the money for only a few weeks--you said you were pinched in a stock deal. You lied to me. You have wasted the money on fine feathers for your back. I have kept still. You can't pay me. I've got to struggle out of the mess as best I can. But, by the eternal gods, there's something coming to me, and that's your daughter. Now are you going to wake up?” “I'll do everything I can.” Her tone was not convincing, however. He realized that this woman with the pulpy conscience and the artificial emotions, selfish and a coward, was merely vaguely stirred by his revelation, not spurred by the extent of his sacrifice in her behalf. “Do what you _can_? Whine to me like that after I have stolen state's money and am standing under my steal? What if this state tips over politically and they investigate the treasury? I tell you, Mrs. Kilgour, I deserve to have Kate. I'm going to have her. You have got to fix it--and right away.” “But I can't marry off a girl of twenty as if she were a Chinese slave.” His insistence caused her to display more of her pettish resentment. “If you can't deliver the goods, Mrs. Kilgour, I shall take a hand in it.” “How?” “I'll tell her the story.” “You wouldn't dare.” “She has a sense of honor and of obligation even if you haven't. She will pay. She'll pay with herself. That's a devil of a way to get a wife, but if that's the only way I'll take it.” “But you have just owned up that you have embezzled money. As Kate's mother it's my duty to protect her from disgrace.” That amazing declaration fairly took away Dodd's breath. By the manner in which the woman now looked at him it was plain that he had sunk in her estimation. “You know, Richard, a mother feels called on to protect a good daughter.” He got up and stamped on the floor in his passion and swore. “I appreciate what you did for me--but, really, I didn't ask you to steal money--and I supposed your uncle was always liberal with you. You should not have told me falsehoods.”