"Sit down," she said, more to give her time to think than in consideration of his comfort. Then, after a moment: "It isn't much of a boast, to mean this as much as you have ever meant anything." "Then need we talk further? You ask questions; I answer; you do not believe. Why continue?" She sat down in a chair before him. "This is the reason: That I think you have lied to me again. I don't believe you are sincere. No, no, you must listen to me, now!"--as he started forward with an enraged exclamation. "I brought you here to make what is left of the Dick Hilton I once liked see this thing as I see it." And try she did. She talked rapidly, almost hurriedly, carried along by her own conviction, made dominant by it, sweeping aside his early protests, forcing him to listen to her. She put her best into that effort for as he sat there with his cruel, cynical smile on her she realized that this was a task worthy of her best mettle. She sketched Bobby Cole's life as she knew it, she argued in detail to show him how the girl had never had a chance to taste the things which are sweetest to girlhood. She touched on the incident in town where, in desperation, Bobby had tried to force the respect of men and she told him of the defiance with which her own advances of friendship had been met. Jane was eloquent. For the better part of an hour she talked steadily, occasionally interrupted by a skeptical laugh or a sneering retort, but she persisted. Hilton listened and watched, eyes hard, mouth drawn into forbidding lines, a manner of suspicious caution about him, as though there were much that he wanted to conceal. Finally her sincerity had an effect and she could see his cold assurance melting. His gaze left hers and a flush crept into his cheeks. She moved quickly to sit beside him. "Dick! Dick! For the sake of what you once were, for the sake of what you still can be, go away! If you won't go for the sake of the girl, go for your own salvation!" "It's not what you think," he protested feebly, without looking at her. "I'm not philandering. I--" "No, Dick, not philandering, because that is too gentle a word. It is something worse, something darker, which will bring more shame to you and to all who once knew and trusted you. "Don't you see that you're playing with something as delicate as a mountain flower? Don't you see you will crush it? Because this girl is strong of body and thoroughly able to contend for her own position with muscles and weapons, don't think that her heart can be treated roughly. It would wither if she gave it to you and found that you held it of little value." "I tell you I'm on the level with her." "Would you marry her?"--leaning closer to him as his manner told of the effect her pleas were having. "Of course." "You'd take her east, to your friends?" "Why, why not?"--shifting uneasily.