I don’t want it. But mind you spend it all on yourselves; don’t use any of it for the household. And remember I won’t touch a penny of it.”

            “But, Maurice,” said Mrs. Birkton, “the dress won’t cost twenty dollars.”

            “So much the worse,” he retorted; and the door shut on him with a crash that was conclusive.

            Helfenridge, whose work (he was a clerk in the same establishment which had been the scene of Maurice’s brief commercial experience) often delayed him down town long after his dinner-hour, did not reach his friend’s house until eight o’clock on the following evening. As he started on his long ascent of the steep tenement-stairs some one ran against him on the first landing, and he drew back in surprise, recognizing Maurice in the flare of the gas-jet against the whitewashed wall.

            “Hullo, Maurice! Didn’t Mrs. Birkton tell you that I was coming this evening?”

            “I—yes—the fact is, I was just going out,” Birkton said, confusedly.

            Helfenridge glanced at him, marking his evasive eye.

            “Oh, very well. If you’re going out I’ll try again.”

            “No—no. You’d better come up after all. I’d rather see you now. I’ve got something to say to you.”

            “Are you sure?” said Helfenridge. “I’d rather not be taken on sufferance.”

            “I want to see you,” Birkton repeated, with sudden force; and the two men climbed the stairs together in silence.

            “Come this way,” said Maurice, leading Helfenridge into his bedroom.

            He put a match to the gas-burner, and another to the stove, and pushed his only easy-chair forward within the radius of the dry, yellow heat, while Helfenridge threw aside his hat and overcoat, which were fringed with frozen snow.

            “You don’t look well, Maurice,” he said, taking the seat proffered by his friend.

            “It’s because I’m new at it, I suppose,” the other returned, dryly.

            “New at what? What do you mean?”

            “Wait a minute,” said Maurice; “I want to show you something first.”

            He opened the door as he spoke, and Helfenridge heard him walk along the narrow passage-way to the kitchen; then came the opening of another door, which launched a confusion of soft, gay tones upon the intervening obscurity. “Oh, no, no,” Helfenridge heard a young voice half laughingly protest; then an older tone interposed, gently urgent, mingled with an odd unfamiliar laugh from Maurice; lastly the door of the bedroom was suddenly thrown wide, and Maurice reappeared, pushing before him his sister, clad from head to foot in white muslin, her flat, childish waist defined by a wide white sash, even her little feet shod in immaculate ivory kid.

            Above all this whiteness her flushed face emerged like a pink crocus from a snow-drift; her lips were parted in tremulous, inarticulate apologies, but no explanatory word reached Helfenridge.

            “Why, Miss Annette, how lovely!” he exclaimed at random, questioning Maurice with his eyes.

            “There—doesn’t she look nice?” the brother asked, retaining his grasp of her white shoulders. “That’s her confirmation dress, if you please! She’s going to be confirmed next Sunday at the Church of the Precious Blood, and you’ve got to be there to see it.”

            “Oh, Maurice,” murmured Annette.

            “Of course I shall be there,” said Helfenridge, warmly. “But what a beautiful dress! Are all confirmation dresses as beautiful as that?”

            “Oh, no, Mr. Helfenridge; but Maurice—”

            “Father Thurifer likes all the girls in the class to be dressed like that,” Maurice quickly interposed. “And now run off before your finery gets tumbled,” he added, pushing her out of the room with a smile which softened the abruptness of the gesture.

            He shut the door and the two men stood looking at each other.

            “She’s lovely,” said Helfenridge, gently.

            “Poor little girl,” said Maurice. “Isn’t it a pretty fancy to dress them all in white?”

            “Yes—I suppose it’s a High Church idea?”

            “I suppose so. I never knew anything about it until the other day—until two days ago, in fact. Then I found that Father Thurifer had requested all the girls who are to be confirmed to dress in white muslin; and we hadn’t a penny between us to buy her a dress with.”

            “Yes?” said Helfenridge, tentatively.

            “Annette’s a very good little girl, you know—immensely religious. Father Thurifer says he never saw a more religious nature. And it nearly killed her not to have a white dress—not to appear worthy of the day. She regards it as the most solemn day of her life. Can you understand how she must have felt? I couldn’t at first, but I think I do now. After all, she’s only a child.”

            “I understand,” said Helfenridge.

            “Well, neither my mother nor I had a copper left. There was no way of getting the dress—and it seemed to me she had to have it.”

            “Yes?”

            “I said the other day that I didn’t know what would happen if one of us fell ill; but in a way it would have been simpler than this. Annette, now—if Annette had been ill we could have sent her to the hospital. My mother is too sensible to have any prejudice against hospitals. But this is different—there was no other way of getting the dress; and it had to be got somehow. I don’t believe her wedding-dress will seem half so important to her—there’s so little perspective at fifteen.”

            “Well?” said Helfenridge after a pause.

            “Well, so I—good God, Helfenridge, won’t you understand?”

            Both men were silent; Helfenridge sat with his hands clenched on the arms of his chair.

            Suddenly he said, as if in a flash of remembrance: “You sent that thing to Baker Buley—the thing about Mrs. Tolquitt?”

            “Yes,” said Maurice.

            A long pause followed, in which the thoughts of the two men cried aloud to each other.

            At length Maurice exclaimed, “I wish you’d speak out—say what you think.”

            “I don’t know,” said Helfenridge, in a low tone.

            “You don’t know? You mean you don’t know what to say?”

            “What to think.”

            “What to think of a man who’s sold his soul?”

            “I’m not sure if you have. It seems to me that I’m not sure of anything,” Helfenridge said.

            “I am—I’m sure that Annette had to have her dress,” said Maurice, with a defiant laugh.

            “When does it come out?”

            “It’s out already—it came out this morning. It’s all over town by this time.”

            “Do they know?” asked Helfenridge, suddenly.

            “My mother and Annette? God forbid. Do you suppose they would have touched the money?”

            “How did you account to them for having it?”

            “I told them that was my secret—that they shouldn’t know for the present.