As you gently suggested, I am a mining engineer possessing a bank account at Denver.

I will most gladly draw a sight draft to-morrow, and pay your expenses back to that city, if you will only accept my offer.

Is this fair ?" "Perfectly so; yet supposing I refuse ?" "And deliberately choose the Gayety instead ?" "Yes, and deliberately choose the Gayety instead--what then ?" She asked the momentous question calmly enough, her mouth rigid, her eyes challenging him to speak the whole truth.

He moistened his dry lips, realizing that he was being forced into an apparently brutal bluntness he had sincerely hoped to avoid.
"Then," he replied, with quiet impressiveness, "I fear such deliberate action would forfeit my respect." She went instantly white before the blow of these unexpected words, her fingers clasping the door, her eyes as full of physical pain as if he had struck her with clinched hand.
"Forfeit your respect!" she echoed, the slender figure quivering, the voice tremulous.

"Rather should I forever forfeit my own, were I to accept your proffer of money." Her form straightened, a slight tinge of color rising to the cheeks.