She went on as if she had not heard him, though she had quivered at his words. "I want you to take the money to Mr. Rogers. You will know what to say." The full significance of what she had said was just dawning upon him. He gazed at her, wondering what must have been passing in her mind these last few days. "Mr. Rogers is very proud," he said. "He'll not take the money--at least not from me." "You're certain?" "From me--never." "Then I must take it to him myself." She rose. "I'll be ready in a few minutes. You must go with me." He rose also. Her white face, that met his so squarely, told him how deeply she felt, how strong her determination was. "Yes, I'll go with you," he said. When she re-entered the library she was dressed in the suit of autumn brown and the brown hat with its single rose, which she had worn the day they had met at St. Christopher's. He knew she felt the matter of her errand too keenly to speak of it, and too absorbingly to speak of anything else; and so, in silence, they went out into the street. Half an hour later they entered Rogers's office. "Just wait a minute, while I tell him you're here," whispered David, and went into the living room where Rogers was. Presently he brought her in, introduced her to Rogers, and withdrew. Helen had never seen Rogers. Her picture of him was purely of the imagination, and imagination had put in its vague portrait the hard lines, the hang-dog look, the surly bearing that might well remain with a reformed criminal. So she was totally unprepared for the slight figure with the wasted, intellectual face that rose from an easy-chair by the air-shaft window, and for the easy gesture and even voice with which he asked her to be seated. She recognised instantly that to make him accept the money would prove a harder task than she had counted. "Thank you," she said, and sitting down she studied Rogers's face for the moment she was adjusting her faculties to the new difficulty. "Did Mr. Aldrich tell you why I wished to see you?" "No." He would be courteous to her for the sake of the request David had made to him, but his hatred of her father allowed him only a monosyllabic reply. To speak words that would show warm sympathy for him and no disloyalty to her father, this was her problem. "Mr. Aldrich has told me of your land enterprise and how--it failed," she said with a great effort, feeling that her words were cold and ineffective. "He told me how you lost a large sum that you had practically gained. He told me that it was--my father--who made you lose it." Her first effort would carry her no further. He nodded. She clutched the arms of her chair, breathed deeply, and drove herself on. "You should not have lost it. I have come to bring you--to ask you to let me return to you"--a brown-gloved hand drew a roll of bills from the bag in her lap "this money that belongs to you." She held the elastic-bound roll out to him. His interlocked hands did not move from his lap.