marriage in the evening. You are a man, but if you won't spare me for a man's follies, spare me for the sake of the woman I am to marry. I'm sick! I can't talk! Only give me until to-morrow."
"——— it, Bike," Richard said, feelingly, "if it wasn't for the girl's sister, I'd fling the whole thing over." He little knew what it meant to him. "I believe your promise. I'm a man, reckless, indolent, careless as the worst of them, and, confound it, I'm sorry for you. There's my hand."
"Thank you, thank you," Bike said, his deep emotions showing in the painful twitching of his pale face. He clasped Dick's firm hand in his own dry, feverish one, and gave it a grateful pressure.
"Until to-morrow, then?"
"Until to-morrow," echoed the unhappy man. looking into Dick's face with an appealing look of agony that Richard never forgot.
