She was white as marble, and trembling like a leaf, for Nancy Sharp had come with more news of the excitement in town, and of Godfrey Sheldon’s threat to leave no stone unturned till Grey was punished. “Oh, Herbert,” she said, bursting into tears and leaning her head on his arm, “have you heard they are to meet to-night to talk about arresting father?” Herbert said he had heard something of the kind, but did not think it was true. “It is true,” Louie cried, in a tremor of distress, “and you must stop it!” “I stop it! How?” Herbert asked, and Louie replied: “Go to the meeting, and plead for him. Tell them how sorry and broken he is. Tell them it will all be paid in time, if I live. I can do it, and I will. Tell them everything we have will be sold, if they will only leave father alone. You will do this for me?” She was looking at him now, with the tears running down her cheeks, and her lips quivering with the pain it gave her to ask this of her lover, whose hesitancy she saw before he spoke. If she had asked him to walk through a fire he could have done it more readily than to attend the meeting of angry citizens and plead for Mr. Grey. It would be too marked, and life would be intolerable with his father when he heard it, as he was sure to. This he tried to explain, and Louie understood him, and knew she must stand alone. There was no one to help her, and in her eyes, dry now, and very bright, there was a look, which Herbert would never forget, and in coming years he would give much if he could recall the words which had brought it there. “Father will be wanting me, and I must go to him,” she said, when he tried to detain her while he explained, further why it would be of no use for him to do her bidding. “I shall only be one against many, and I am sorry to say some of the creditors have lost their good sense with their money, and they would only laugh at me if I told them _you_ would pay the debts. How can you do it?” “I know,” was Louie’s reply, as she drew away from him.