"I'm a beast, Maisie, a beast! Don't cry so--dear. It's always been so, it's what's done for me all my life. My mother's dead, thank God! She died before she knew. But my father," striking his clenched hand on the arm of her chair, "he's got it to answer for, wherever he is, living or dead! He was a devil, Maisie, and he made me one. He fed me the stuff when I was a baby and I took to it like milk; it was his cursed blood in me, I suppose. It's driven me from pillar to post, from a job to the gutter, time and again. It's been up one minute and down the next with me. Oh, I'm not fit to touch you, Maisie, I'm a dog to ask it, but I tell you that, if I play out the game alone, this thing will drive me to hell! Would you--stand by me, help me? It's always been stronger than I am, perhaps it always will be, but Maisie, I think I can beat it out, can be a man--with you!" It was out at last, the sum of his passionate longing, poured out despairingly in a flood of wild unrecking words; without forethought, wrung from him by the sudden yearning born of the sight of the girl in tears. Now that it was over he remained silent a moment, still torn by his emotion and by hers. Then, slowly and fearfully, his stinging eyes sought her face. It was buried in her little hands. Tears trickled through her clasped fingers. He rose heavily to his feet. What madness had possessed him, what presumption! He had asked her to marry--a drunkard. He laughed with bitter brevity. The sound brought the sight of a startled face with tear-wet eyes. "Overlook it, Maisie," he asked desolately, as he turned away, "and good-by. I don't know how I came to do it--but you cried." He was half way to the hall. There was a soft step behind him, a light touch upon his arm. He turned swiftly, the ghost of a wan hope in his haggard eyes. "Ah, Micky," she whispered, with a smile whose tender memory would live for him in endless summer through autumn's falling leaves till winter's winding sheets,--"don't you--don't you know--why--I cried?" CHAPTER XIII A WAGER Micky told Dick about it one evening, for his heart was full. His engagement was a serious thing to him, and something like fear mingled with his hope of the future. He was deeply sensible of his past mistakes, but he knew himself too well to look to the coming days with unshrinking confidence. He hoped, very humbly; that was all. Dick was sympathetic, he understood. His was one of those rare natures that invite, comprehend and respect confidences. "You know my record, Dick," Micky had said. "There isn't much in it of a domestic tinge. But just the same, when I happen to get a night off and sit in the little parlor with her, it seems--" with a queer little break in his voice,--"why Dick, it seems as if I had at last--got home!"