He rose and started to speak, but she cut him off. "I know what is in your heart; your pride wants you to refuse. If you refuse, you do only one thing: you deny me the relief of partially correcting a wrong. That is all. Is it right for you to deny me that? Will you yourself not be doing a wrong?" He was trembling; she had taken the only road to his consent. But he made no motion toward the money in her outstretched hand. "For my sake--I beg you--I implore you." She spoke tremulously, simply. He held out a thin hand, and she laid the money in it. "For your sake," he breathed. "Thank you," she said. Helen felt herself growing weak and dizzy. The reaction was setting in. "I must go. I can't ask you to forgive me--but won't you let me, as one that would like to be regarded as a friend, wish that there may be brightness ahead which you don't see." She held out her hand, timidly. He grasped it. He could not speak. "Thank you," she whispered, and slowly turned away. At the door she paused, and looked back. "My best wishes are with you," she said, and went out. CHAPTER IV THE ORDEAL OF KATE MORGAN That night David and Rogers had a long talk. In consequence, correspondence was re-opened with the sanitarium at Colorado Springs, and David began to spend part of his time in helping equip Rogers for the distant struggle against death. During the two weeks since his exposure Rogers had not railed; he had borne his defeat in grim, quiet despair. His bitterness did not now depart; he had not forgotten his defeat, and he had not forgiven the world. But his life now had an object, and the hope, which the really brave always save from even the worst wreck, began to stir within him. The next two weeks David worked with his pen as he had never worked before. He was in that rare mood when things flow from one. Before the end of the two weeks he turned in to Mr. Osborne two short stories which Mr. Osborne, with the despatch a publisher gives a new author he is desirous of holding, immediately examined, accepted and paid for at a very respectable rate. Mr. Osborne suggested a series of articles for his magazine, spoke of more stories, assured David he would have no difficulty in marketing his writing elsewhere; and when David left the publisher's office it was with the exultant sense that financially his future was secure. Mr. Osborne assured him his book was going to turn much serious thought to our treatment of the criminal and other wasted people, and that his shorter writings were going to help to the same end. His publisher asked him to speak before a club interested in reform measures, and his talk, straight from the heart and out of his own experience, made a profound impression. The success of this speech suggested to him another means of helping--the spoken word. He felt that at last his life was really beginning to count.