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"No" Cheniston's face had lost all its boyishness; it looked haggard, unhappy, old "Possibly not But when one has ht one would have been only too ready to pay the price of one's miscalculation"

For a second Anstice stared at hi his hands out of his pockets for the first time "The question is, What is the price? And do you really think that to repudiate a debt by running away from one's creditor, so to speak, is as satisfactory a settlement as to pay it coin by coin, each coin drawn from one's own heart's blood?"

This time it was Cheniston who stared at him in non-comprehension Presently he said slowly: "I think I understand You est man is the one who can stand up to any situation hich life confronts hih itThat is what you mean?"

"Yes," said Anstice steadily "That is what I mean God only knohat the price may be, and whether I shall have the coin in my treasury when I'm called on to payif I am so called upon And by the way"--his face hardened--"do I understand you to mean that I'm your debtor--that it is to you that the price may--one day--be paid?"

Cheniston made no reply The hostility had suddenly died out of his eyes; and for a limpse of the ers played absently with his cigarette case--"I have loved Hilda Ryder all ether as children; I was a few years older than sheby the way, how old are you?"

Surprised, Anstice owned to his twenty-nine years

"And I am twenty-six Hilda enty-four last year Well, all my life she has been the one--the only--woed four years; her people wouldn't sanction it till she enty, but ays kneere made for one another, and Hilda used to say she would rather be my wife than marry the richest, the most famous man on earth!"

Suddenly Anstice heard her soft voice in his ear

"To marry himperhaps in tilorious destiny in the world"