"I?" Roberts smiled, his slow smile. "I'm her lawyer and—abstract. Besides, her father is wealthy. There'd be a fat fee if she returned to him."

"You forget that I apologized."

"That's right. I'm always forgetting." Apparently he did not remember even yet.

"You've neglected to answer my question," impatiently. "I repeat: what are you going to do about it?"

"I asked your solution first. Do you give it up?"

"Yes," with a little gesture; "I give it up."

Darley Roberts smiled; a contagious, convincing smile.

"Very well, I'll try then," he said. "I shan't promise anything. I'll simply try."

"Try how?"

Again Roberts smiled; but through whimsically narrowed lids now.

"I'm not sure of the details yet myself. I merely have an idea. There's an old adage concerning Mahomet and the mountain, you know."

"And in this case Margery represents the mountain?"

"Yes."

Unconsciously the girl's color heightened.

"You really fancy," swiftly, "that Harry can be stirred up enough, can be made practical enough—you forget you said a moment ago that he would never advance financially."

"No. The adage will have to be adjusted a bit to meet the requirements. He'll have to be carried there."

Elice Gleason drew a quick little breath of understanding and something more.

"If you'll do this for one almost a stranger, one wonders what you would do for a friend," she said; "one—wonders."

For an instant the man said nothing; abruptly, dismissing the subject, he arose.

"There's just one other thing that I meant to tell you," he said; "something that perhaps you know already. I'm pretty busy and I don't always find time to read the local news. So it's not unusual that I didn't know before. Steve Armstrong is back."

Quietly the girl arose also, stood so very still.

"Yes," she said. "He's been back a week. He's working in the big drug-store on the corner, Shaw's place, in the laboratory."

"That's all, then. I thought perhaps you didn't know."

For an instant the girl was silent; she looked her companion full in the face.

"He called the afternoon he came. He was almost—pitiable. Father came home finally."

"Elice!"

Their eyes held. Not three feet separate they stood there; but neither stirred.

"Mr. Roberts."

In silence the man put on top-coat and gloves; not hastily, nor yet lingeringly. Equally naturally he picked up his hat.

"December the sixth," he said. "One whole year. To-morrow will be the seventh—and business—battle, again." For the first time he dallied, the big soft felt hat turning absently in his hand. "Somehow I'd hoped a lot for the sixth, planned a lot—and now it's past." His eyes shifted, fastened elsewhere compellingly.

"It is all past, all over, gone into history, isn't it, Elice?"

"Yes, it's past, Mr. Roberts."

"Not even 'past, Darley,' not even that—yet?"

The brown eyes dropped. They had fought their fight and won—for December the sixth.

"No. Not even that—yet," she said.



CHAPTER II

ACQUAINTANCE

At the corner next beyond the Gleason home Darley Roberts caught the nine o'clock car, and remained on it until the end of the division, practically the extreme opposite edge of the town, was reached. He was the last passenger to leave, and as the motorman was reversing the trolley he paused a moment in the vestibule.

"Normal load was it, Johnson?" he asked the conductor. "You rang up twenty-four fares, I noticed."

The man looked consciously surprised to be called by name.

"Yes, Mr. Roberts," he said; "we carry anywhere between twenty and thirty at this time of night."

"How about the next trip, nine-thirty?"

"Better yet if anything."

"And the next, the last?"

"Best of all. The straps are nearly always loaded."

Roberts buttoned up his coat deliberately.

"Think it would pay to run a couple of hours longer?" he asked, and this time the conductor all but flushed at the unexpected confidence.

"Yes; I'm sure it would, Mr. Roberts; especially when the school's in session. The boys would ride half the night if they could."

"There seems to be a good deal in that. By the way, you have only one shift on this car now, I understand."

It was the long-hoped-for opportunity and Johnson grew eloquent.

"Right you are, and it's the dog's life for us men. I've had only one hot meal a day since I took the job." He searched the impassive face before him with a glance. "If the schedule was stretched a little, now, at either end and a second shift added—"

"That's a good idea. I'm glad it occurred to you. Better speak to the superintendent about it yourself; he'll see the point." Roberts alighted deliberately. "Any suggestion you men in the service make is valuable." As he vanished up the street toward his destination, in the fulness of knowledge that the contemplated suggestion had been decided from the turning of the first wheel on the system, he left behind him a man imbued with an esprit de corps that was to grow and leaven the entire working force. It took but a minute all told!

Five minutes later, in the half dark doorway of a cottage on a side street, he was face to face with Harry Randall.

"Pardon me if I intrude," he was saying, "but I'm going out of town to-morrow and I wish to talk with you a bit before I go. Can you spare me a little time?"

"Certainly." Randall's manner was decidedly stiff. Nevertheless he led the way through the vestibule and living-room to the dining-room beyond. There he halted significantly. "By the way," he began, "the furniture I mentioned—"

"Damn the furniture!" Roberts met his host's look steadily. "You know me better than that, by reputation if nothing more. I said I wished to talk with you. May I?"

Randall colored, and the stiffness vanished as by a miracle.

"Pardon me," he said. "I've got a sort of den upstairs where I do my work." Again he led the way. "My wife's out of town, though, now, and things are a bit mussy."

Roberts made no comment, and they mounted the stairs in silence.

Inside the room the visitor swept the place with a single all-including glance. Thereafter, apparently, he observed nothing.

"First of all, then," he initiated bluntly, "do I intrude? If so, I can tell my business in five minutes; if not, we might possibly become acquainted."

Again Randall colored; then he smiled, his saving quality.

"Not in the least. It's Friday night, you know. In addition I was a bit lonely. I'm distinctly glad to see you."

"Which, interpreted, means glad to see any one."

"Yes, I suppose so."

For an instant the old odd smile shone in Roberts' eyes, then it disappeared, leaving them normal, inscrutable.

"To begin with, then, I came primarily to talk about Steve Armstrong. I believe he's a friend of yours."

"Yes." A halt, then the query direct returned. "Is he of yours?"

"I'll answer that question later, if you please. At least he's the one adult to date I can remember who ever called me by my first name. Did you know that he'd returned to town?"

"Yes. He was here last night."

"Responsible, was he?"

"Mr. Roberts!" Randall flushed like a woman with strangers. "Pardon me, but there are some questions I can't answer—at least until you answer my own of a moment ago."

"I understand perfectly. Also, contrary to your suspicion, I didn't avoid your question to make it difficult for you. It requires two to be friends. Enmities I, personally, have none. Life's too short and too busy. If it will assist you any, I met Armstrong in the street this evening face to face, and he declined to speak. I judge he's no friend to me. Am I any more clear?"

"Yes," simply.

"Do you wish to answer my question now, then?"

"I judge you have a good reason for asking. He was not responsible, wholly."

"Not even decently so?"

"Hardly."

"I gathered as much from his appearance to-night. It was the first time I'd seen him in nearly a year. You know the whole story between Armstrong and myself, I take it?"

"Yes," once more.

"And your sympathy is naturally with him."

"It has been."

"And now—"

The smile that made Randall's face boyish came into being.

"I'm deferring judgment now—and observing."

"I fear I can't help you much there," said Darley, shortly. "I wished to discuss the future a bit, not the past. The last time I talked with Armstrong he was impossible. I think you know what I mean. All men are that way when they lose their nerve and drown the corpse. What I wish to ask of you is whether the thing was justified. I'm not artistic. I don't brag of it—I admit it. You're different; your opinion is of value. Commercially, he's an impossibility. He couldn't hold a place if he had it—any place. I don't need to tell you that either. As a writer—can he write, or can't he?"

Harry Randall took off his big eyeglasses and polished one lens and then the other.

"In my opinion, yes—and no." He held the glasses to the light, seemed satisfied, and placed them carefully on his nose. "A great writer—he'll never be that. It takes nerve and infinite patience to be anything great, and Steve invariably loses his nerve too soon. He lacks just that much of being big. As for ability, the spark—he's got it, Roberts, as certainly as you and I are sitting here. Elementally, he's a child and will always remain a child. I think most artists are more or less so. Children can't bear criticism or delay—uncertain delay—that's Steve. On the other hand, if he were encouraged, kept free on the financial side, left at liberty to work when he felt the mood, and then only, then—I realize it's a big 'if' and a big contract for some one—he'd make good. Have I answered your question?"

"Yes. And here's another: Is it worth while?"

"To bolster him, you mean; to 'pull him out of the mud,' to use his own phrase?"

"No; that would be a waste of energy. I mean to keep him out permanently, to continue pulling indefinitely."

For a long time the two men sat in silence.

"God knows," said Randall at last. "I've asked myself the same question for years—and couldn't answer it. It's as big as the universe. Steve is simply an atom. It's unanswerable."

In the pause following Roberts lit one of the seemingly inexhaustible black cigars, after proffering its mate. Again the two sat there, the blue haze of mutual understanding gathering between them.

"I say it's unanswerable," repeated Randall. "It's the old problem of the young supporting the uselessly old, the well serving the incurably diseased. It means eternal vigilance from some one, eternal sacrifice. It's insoluble, neither more nor less."

"Yes," said Roberts. "I've found it so—insoluble. Particularly so in this case."

Slowly Randall's glance lifted, met the other's eyes. That instant, as a flame is born, came full understanding between them.

"Yes, particularly so in this case," echoed Roberts; "for it means a woman's sacrifice, one particular woman's sacrifice. Nothing else in the world will do—nothing."

It was the beginning of personal confidence, the halting-point for conversation between these two. Both knew it and neither crossed the line. They merely waited until a digression should come naturally. Roberts it was who at last introduced it, and in a manner so matter of fact that the other was all but deceived.

"Has Armstrong been doing anything lately in a literary way—anything, I mean, that justifies your opinion?" he asked abruptly.

"No, not that I know of; absolutely nothing."

"You're relying, then, on past impressions merely."

"Yes; specifically the last novel he wrote,—the one of a year or a year and a half or so ago."

"You haven't by any chance a copy of the manuscript, I suppose?"

"No."

"You could doubtless get it, however?"

"I think so—unless some time he became morbid and burned it."

"He hasn't done that; I know him. He might threaten; but to do it—he'd as probably go hungry. Get it some time, will you?"

"I will if you request. You don't wish it for yourself, do you?"

"No, not for myself. Perhaps not at all. I've not decided yet. Anyway get it, please, and be ready if I should ask." He flashed a look no man had ever questioned, could question. "You don't doubt my motive?"

"No. The manuscript will be ready. I'll answer for that."

No further question of interest was asked, no additional hint of purpose proffered. The subject merely dropped, as in the beginning it had merely begun. In some ways they were similar, these two men in general so dissimilar.

"I had another object in calling to-night," said Roberts, and again the announcement was made without preface. "The opportunity to buy a house presented itself to-day and I accepted. Perhaps you know the place,—J. C. Herbert's, on top of the hill."

"Yes." Open wonder spoke in the voice, open mystification. "Yes, I know it."

"It's been vacant for some time. I moved this afternoon, just into a couple of rooms. My boy is there now trying to warm up the place; but even then it won't be particularly inviting. Besides, I'm out of town quite a bit and in the future am likely to be called away still more. It occurred to me that if I could find some married people whom I trusted, who would take a personal interest in it and make it a home, it would be pleasanter for me than being tucked away in a couple of rooms alone and the rest of the barn empty."

"Yes," repeated Randall, impersonally, "I think I appreciate your point of view. It's a little cheerless to be in a house alone."

"I wouldn't expect to interfere with them in any way," Roberts drifted on, "or live with them—nothing of the kind. As I said, I probably shouldn't even be there much; only at night. I'd expect to keep it up—coal and light and that sort of thing—just the same as I would have to do if I were alone. I'd naturally wish to help furnish it, too; the things that would inevitably fit in with it and wouldn't fit any place else. But the main thing would be to have somebody about to make my own corner livable, to sort of humanize the place. You catch my idea?"

"Yes, I think so." Harry Randall's hand was on his bald spot, caressing it absently. "Yes, I think so," he repeated.

"It's a big place, even larger than I remembered, when I went through it to-day," went on Roberts again. "It'll take considerable help to keep it up and some one will have to be about constantly to direct. I have the help in mind right now, competent too—I meet a lot of people in various ways and I've had the thing on my mind; but the supervision—it's simply out of the question with me at the present." He faced the other, looked at him straight. "Would you and Mrs. Randall care to accept the place as a home in return for taking the responsibility of up-keep from me?"

In the pause following Harry Randall's face went slowly red. Equally directly he met the other's look.

"Pardon me, Mr. Roberts," he said, "but Mrs. Randall and myself are not exactly objects of charity yet."

Darley Roberts' expression did not alter by so much as the twitching of a muscle.

"That was unjustified, Mr. Randall," he said evenly, "and you know it. Let me explain a bit further. I happen to have a house, but no home. By the same chance you are able to produce the reverse. Just why should it be an offence upon my part to suggest bringing the two together—for the mutual benefit of us both?"

"Why? Because it's unequal, it's patronage; and though I work for twelve hundred dollars a year, I'm still American born."

"Granted—the latter remark. I'm also American born, in the remotest corner of the most God-forsaken county in—I won't name the State; I might hurt some one's feelings." Roberts' big fingers were twitching in a way they had when something he had decided to do met with opposition. "Nevertheless I hope that fact doesn't make me wholly unreasonable. When it comes to patronage, we're all patronized: you do a kindness for a friend, without remuneration, and he accepts it; that's patronage. The University gives you a position as professor, out of a dozen applicants who could do equally well, and you accept gladly. That's favoritism, another word for patronage. A client comes to me and pays a fee for doing a certain labor, when my competitor across the street would perform it equally capably, and for perhaps a smaller fee. That's patronage. You patronize your tailor when you order a suit of clothes, the butcher when you buy a beefsteak. It's the basis of life, elemental. The very air you breathe is patronage. It costs you nothing, and you give nothing adequate in return. To characterize patronage as un-American, stultifying, is preposterous. Even if it were true in this case, you'd have to give another reason for offence. I refuse to consider it."

"Well, unbusinesslike then, if that is better."

"Unbusinesslike? Wait. In company with three other men I'm developing a silver mine down in Arizona. The mining claim belongs to a fifth man, belongs to him absolutely. He knows the metal is there as well as we do; but it's down under the ground, locked up tight in a million tons of rock. As it is now, so far as he's concerned, it might as well be on Mars. If left to himself alone he'd live and die and it would still be there. He hasn't the ability nor the means to make it of use. The other three men and myself have. We can develop it, and will; to our own purposes, share and share alike. According to your notion there's patronage somewhere; but exactly where? Point me the offence?"

Again Harry Randall caressed his bald crown. The argument was convincing, almost.

"The cases are not parallel," he combated weakly, "not even similar."

"And why not?" shortly. "I'm no longer a young man particularly. I've never had a place that I could call home in my life; never for a day that I can remember. I want one now, fancy I see the possibility of making one; a place where I can keep a friend now and then if I wish, where I could even order in a supper and entertain if I saw fit. I chance to have the ability to pay for the privilege, and am willing to pay. That's my affair. You chance to be able to make that home possible—and incidentally enjoy it yourself. It's like the silver mine,—mutual benefit, share and share alike. The cases seem to me parallel, quite parallel."

Opposite Harry Randall sat very still. In absent forgetfulness he polished the big glasses the second time and sprung them back carefully on his nose. But even yet he did not answer, merely sat there waiting; awaiting the moment to counter, to refute.

"Am I not right?" asked Roberts, bluntly. "Isn't the proposition logical?"

"Logical, yes. The logic is very good." Randall glanced up keenly. The moment for which he had been waiting had come, more quickly than he had expected. "So good in fact that I see but one fault."

"And that?"

This time the keen eyes smiled, very candidly.

"The sole fault, so far as I can see, is that you don't believe in it yourself."

For the space wherein one could count ten slowly the two men looked at each other; slowly, in turn, on Roberts' firm fighter's face there formed a smile, a peculiar, appreciative smile.

"Granted," he said. "I admit failure." The smile passed like a dropped curtain. "Moreover be assured I shall not dissimulate again. As a friend, or whatever you wish, however, I advise you to think carefully before you refuse an offer made in good faith and to your own advantage."

Listening, Harry Randall straightened. His lips closed tightly for a second. "You mean, I presume," the words were painfully exact, "to remind me that you hold my note for four hundred dollars, and to imply—" he halted significantly.

For a moment the other man said nothing, the face of him told nothing. Then deliberately, from an inner pocket, he drew out a leather wallet, from the wallet a strip of paper, and held it so the other could read. Still without a word he tore it to bits.

"The devil take your note!" he observed, succinctly and without heat.

"Mr. Roberts, you—" Randall's face was crimson, "you—"

"Yes—I—"

"You didn't mean—that, then, really?"

Roberts said nothing.

"I'm grateful for the confidence, believe me. It's not misplaced, either. Accept my assurance of that too."

"My name is Roberts, not Shylock. I told you before I am American born, of American parents."

"I beg your pardon," abjectly. The red had left Randall's face and in its place, as on a mirror, was forming another look, of comprehension—and more. "Yet you—advised; and if not that—" of a sudden he got to his feet. Something was coming he knew to a certainty—something unexpected, vital—and he felt better able so to meet it. "Just what did you mean?"

Roberts was studying him deliberately, with the peculiar analytical look Armstrong of old had known so well.

"You can't imagine yet," he queried, "not with the motive you fancied eliminated?"

"You wish to do me a kindness, a disinterested kindness. For what reason?"

"Cut out my motive, providing I have one, for the present. It's immaterial."

"That doesn't help—I can't conceive—" On a sudden came a flash of light that augmented to a blaze. "Can it concern Margery and me? Is that it?"

Roberts did not look up. "Yes," he said.

"You know, then," tensely. "How much?"

"Everything." Roberts inspected the wall-paper opposite as though interested. "If you'll permit me I'll help you to avoid an action for divorce." A pause. "One, moreover, I can't help but feel somewhat justified."

For long, very long, there was silence absolute. Then, adequate time having passed, apparently Roberts lost interest in the wall pattern.

"Sit down, please," he suggested. "At last it seems we understand each other. Let's talk things over a bit."



CHAPTER III

FRIENDSHIP

"Very well, I'm listening."

It had come about, that return of composure, more quickly than a stranger would have thought possible, perhaps more quickly than the visitor had expected. At least for a moment he did not follow the obvious lead.

"Particularly I'm waiting for an explanation of that word 'justified' you used." The voice this time was low. "You recall you said 'justifiable action,' do you not?"

"Somewhat justifiable, yes."

Randall looked straight before him.

"Don't you agree with me?" added Roberts.

"Frankly, no. I admit I'm biassed, however—at least I trust I'm not a cad, unable to acknowledge a deficiency when shown."

"Or to administer the remedy, providing that remedy is proved innocuous?"

"Yes; I trust that also."

"Very well, we'll return to 'justifiable' qualified. It will make things easier perhaps. You don't wonder how I happen to know about your trouble?"

"There could be only one explanation."

"Thank you. That simplifies matters also." A halt; then the fundamental question direct: "Will you trust me to help you, trust me unqualifiedly?"

"Yes," no hesitation, no amplification, just that single word, "yes."

Darley Roberts remained for a moment quite still.

"Thank you, again," he said. "I have had few compliments in my life, and that is one." Again he sat quite still, all but the great hands, the only feature of him that ever showed restlessness or rebellion. "To begin with," he resumed suddenly, "I am a lawyer, not a preacher. My business is with marriage the contract, not marriage the sacrament. Sentiment has no place in law. Contracts are promises to deliver certain tangible considerations; otherwise there would be none. Again contracts are specified or implied; but morally equally binding, equally inviolable. In the eye of the law when you married Margery Cooper you contracted, by implication, to deliver certain considerations, chief among them one purely psychological—happiness. By implication you did this. Is it not so?"

"Yes, by implication."

"Have you fulfilled that contract?"

"I have tried."

"The law does not recognize attempts. We're ignoring the Church and sentiment now. Have you fulfilled your contract?"

"No; I failed."

"You admit it freely?"

"Yes; I can't do otherwise."

"Let's drop the legal point of view then. You know why you failed?"

"Yes, and no. A contract carries a mutual obligation. Margery failed also."

Roberts flashed a look.

"Do you desire a separation, too?" incisively.

"No, God, no!" It was sudden panic. "I love her."

"And she loves you," evenly. "She'll return, unquestionably—and in the future will go again as inevitably, unless you fulfil your contract. It's life."

Again Harry Randall stared straight before him, the weight of the universe suddenly on his shoulders.

"Fulfill—" he halted. "Supposing I can't fulfill?"

"Wait. We'll discuss that in a moment. First, you admit there was a certain justification for what she has done?"

No rebellion this time, no false pride.

"Yes," simply; "you were right. I admit it."

"The contract of implied happiness then; you failed because—"

Randall completed the sentence as was intended. "Because we could not live, cannot live, as Margery demands, upon what it is possible for me to make. There is absolutely no other reason."

"She is extravagant, you think?"

"For the wife of one in my position, yes."

"I didn't ask you that. Is she extravagant, for herself as she is?"

Against his will the first suggestion of color showed on Randall's face.

"I fail to see the distinction," he said.

"In other words," remorselessly, "you question my right to wield the probe. You prefer not to be hurt even to effect a cure."

"No, I repeat that I'm not a cad. Besides, I've told you I trust you. When a woman marries a man, though, with her eyes open—" He caught himself. "Pardon me, I'm ashamed to have said that. To answer your question: no; Margery wasn't extravagant in the least by her standard."

"You mean by 'her standard,'" apparently Roberts had heard only the last sentence, "the habit and experience of her whole life, of twenty-two years of precedent when you married her."

"Yes."

"And of generations of inheritance back of that. The Coopers are an old stock and have always been moderately wealthy, have they not?"

"Yes, back as far as the record goes."

"Very good. Can you, by any stretch of the imagination, fancy Mrs. Randall, being as she is, ever living happily in an atmosphere so different from that she has known, which time and circumstance have made her own? Can you?"

"No." The voice was low again, very low. "In my sane moments, never."

Roberts waited deliberately, until the pause added emphasis; with equal deliberation he drove the wedge home.

"And still, in the fulness of this knowledge, you contracted by implication to deliver to her this same thing—happiness," he said.

A second Harry Randall waited, then unconsciously he passed his hand across his face.

"Yes," he echoed, "in the fulness of knowledge I did it. I loved her."

"Loved? And yet you sacrificed her! And on top of that again labelled her rebellion unjustified!" He was silent.

Again Harry Randall's hand passed across his face, and this time it came back damp.

"God, you're hard on me!" he said. "I deserve it, though, and more. She was ignorant absolutely of what it meant to count pennies and deny herself. She couldn't realize, couldn't!"

Roberts said nothing. The leaven was working.

"I hoped, deluded myself with the belief, that it would be different; yet from the first I knew better. I was to blame absolutely. I simply loved her, as I do now—that was all."

"Yes." This time the voice was gentle, unbelievably gentle. "I think I understand—think I do. Anyway," the voice was matter of fact again, startlingly, perhaps intentionally, so, "we're wandering from the point. The past is dead. Let's bury it and look into the future. Do you see the solution yet?"

Randall looked up swiftly. He smiled; the smile of a noncombatant.

"Yes, I see it; I can't help seeing it; but—" The sentence completed itself in a gesture of impotency confessed.

"Don't do that, don't!" The annoyance was not simulated. "It's unforgivable.... You're healthy, are you not?"

"Yes."

"And strong?"

"Reasonably."

"Well, what more can you ask? The world's full of work; avalanches of it, mountains of it. It seems as though there never was so much to be done as now, to-day; and the world will pay, pay if you'll do it. Can't you see light?"

Randall caught himself in time to prevent a second gesture.

"No, frankly, I can't. I've tried, but I'm fundamentally incapable."

Roberts' great fighting face flashed about.

"You've tried—how?"

Randall hesitated, and once again the color mounted his cheek.

"I do my work here in the department the best I can, creditably, I think; but still there isn't much to look forward to, nothing adequate."

"And that's as far as you've tried?"

"Yes; I have no other training."

Roberts looked at him, merely looked.

"No other training!... You fancy this little university, this little bounded, contracted circle, is the world? You've tried! Let me see your hands."

Higher and higher mounted the tell-tale color; obedient as a schoolboy Randall obeyed. Something compelled.

Again Roberts looked and turned away. "A woman's hands; I fancied so.... And you hoped to fulfil your contract, defied fate—with those hands!" His own worked, and under command went still. "You agreed to let me help you, did you not?" he digressed suddenly.

"Yes."

"And promised to trust me? I wish that understood clearly in the beginning."

"Yes," again.

"Very well, then, that brings us back to the starting-point. I repeat my proposal that Mrs. Randall and you change your residence immediately. Must I analyze further?"

"No, I understand—and appreciate. I accept too if Margery—" he halted with a wry smile. "Do you think she—would if I asked her?"

Roberts' expression did not alter. "Supposing you write her and find out," he suggested. "And in the meantime you'll have three days to settle in your new home," he added irrelevantly.

Again Randall colored, like a youth planning on building his first nest. The contagion of the thing was upon him, the infinite, rosy possibilities manifest.

"I can do it easily," he said, "and she'll be surprised—and pleased—I can fancy the way she'll look now." Second thought intruded. "I'm afraid, though, the few things we've got here won't even make an impression there. The place is so big by comparison."

"That's all right," easily. "I said I'd want to take a hand." He had a seeming inspiration. "Supposing you get Miss Gleason to help you and suggest what more is needed. I'm sure she'd do it for Mrs. Randall and you. I'll speak to her too."

"Just the thing. I'd like that immensely. No one can help that way like Elice."

"Let's consider it settled then." His point carried, Roberts' great hands were loose in his lap again. "I had just one other matter I wished to speak about to-night. How'd you like to accept a position under me with the new company?" He did not elaborate this time, did not dissimulate. "I'll personally guarantee you four thousand a year, beginning January first, with three weeks' vacation."

"How would I like it!" For the third time Harry Randall fell to polishing his glasses; but this time, in spite of an effort to prevent, his hand shook visibly. "You don't need to ask me that. It would be a miracle; only—only I'm a bit afraid of a position of that kind—afraid it would be too big."

"The company would expect you to earn it, of course," impassively.

"But I'm not worth it. I know that and I don't want to accept under false representations. It's beyond me."

"Beyond nothing!" curtly. "If I say you're worth it, you are. I'll make you so—help if necessary. Do you accept?"

"Accept, yes, and thank you. I won't protest, or presume to misunderstand your intent in offering it to me. I realize you're giving me a chance to make good where I failed to fulfil my obligation with Margery." The voice was not so steady as it might have been and for an instant Randall halted. "If you don't mind, though," he went on, "I'd like to ask you a question. I can't conceive why you, a stranger, practically, should do all this for me. I'm simply confused, it's all so unprecedented. Why do you do it, please?"

Into Darley Roberts' eyes crept the old odd smile that spread no farther.

"You mean it's all so unprecedented—of me," he returned bluntly.

Randall said nothing. It was true.

"Wasn't that what you meant?" he repeated, and just for a second the smile crept beyond the eyes.

"Yes. It's useless to lie."

"—To me?"

This time Randall's face flamed undeniably.

"Yes—to you," he admitted. "You're positively uncanny."

"Don't do it then," shortly, "ever. To answer your question: The main reason, I think, is because to-day is December the sixth—a holiday."

"A holiday!" Randall stared, as in the morning Herbert had stared.

"With me.... Another reason is that I've been an under dog myself for a very long time and—perhaps, though, I am mistaken."

"No, I'm one of the breed unquestionably."

"And under dogs have a fondness for each other instinctively."

Randall held his peace. He had the quality of presentiment and it was active now.

"There was still a third reason." No smile in the blue eyes now, just an impassive blank. "I had a call a few days ago from an upper dog, by heredity. He offered me a thousand dollars cold not to do—what I've just done."

Randall was not a good gambler. His face whitened to the lips.

"You refer to Margery's father," he said.

"Yes. It seemed to me well, under the circumstances, for you to know. He was strongly in favor of letting matters drift. I gathered he has never been particularly fond of you."

"No, never. But Margery—"

"I understand absolutely. Take this for what it is worth from a disinterested observer: Your wife is square, man, from the ground up. Don't ever for an instant, because you were reared differently and have a different point of view, fancy otherwise. Tote your end of the load fair—I believe you see how now—and she'll tote hers. It'll be worth your while."

"Roberts!" Randall was upon his feet, he could not do otherwise. "Honestly I don't know how to thank you. Anything that I can say, can do even—"

"Don't try, please. I'd rather you wouldn't." No pretence in that frank aversion, no affectation. He arose as one whose labor is over. "Let it go at that."

In sheer perplexity Randall frowned. His hands sought his pockets.

"But, confound it, I don't like to. It's so inhumanly ungrateful." The frown deepened. "Besides, when this intoxication is off I'll realize what a lot I'm accepting from you. That house, for instance. You didn't buy a place of that kind for an investment or for yourself alone. I'm not an absolute ass. You'll want it all some of these times, and then—"

Slowly Roberts faced about; equally slowly he smiled.

"Would it relieve your mind any," he finally asked, "if I were to promise to tell you the moment I do want it—all?"

"Yes, a lot."

"I give you my word then."

"Thanks. I believe that too; but—"

For the second time Roberts smiled, the smile of finality unquestionable.

"Must we return and go through it all again?" he asked. "It's after midnight now, but if you wish—"

"No; not that either."

"All right. I'll send the office-boy around in the morning to help you move. He has nothing else really to do." Roberts paused at a sudden thought. "By the way, I'll not be back until a week from to-morrow. Suppose we have a little housewarming, just we four—strangers, that night?" and before the other could answer, before the complex suggestion in its entirety took effect, he was gone.



CHAPTER IV

COMPREHENSION

It was three o'clock in the afternoon of a sultry July Sunday when a big red roadster drew up all but noiselessly and, with an instinct common to all motorists, a heritage from an equine age past, stopped at the nose of the hitching-post in front of the Gleason cottage. In it the single occupant throttled down the engine until it barely throbbed. Alighting, goggles on forehead, he passed up the walk toward the house. Not until he was fairly at the steps did he apparently notice his surroundings. Then, unexpectedly, he bared his head.

"Be not surprised, it is I," he said. "Not in the spirit alone but in the flesh." Equally without warning he smiled. "Needless to say I'm glad to see you again, Elice," as he took the girl's offered hand. Then deliberately releasing it: "and you too, Armstrong," extending his own.

Precisely as, with his companion of the shady porch, he had risen upon the newcomer's advent, the other man stood there. If possible his face, already unnaturally pale for a torrid afternoon, shaded whiter as an instant passed without his making a motion in response.

"And you too, Armstrong," Roberts repeated, the smile still on his face, the hand still extended; then, when there still came no response, the voice lowered until it was just audible, but nevertheless significant in its curt brevity: "Shake whether you want to or not. There are seven pairs of eyes watching from behind that trellis across the street."

Armstrong obeyed as though moved by a wire.

"Speak loud, so they can all hear. They're listening too," directed the low-voiced mentor.

Armstrong, red in the face now, formulated the conventional.

"Thanks." Roberts sat down on the top step, his big-boned body at ease, his great bushy head, in which the gray was beginning to sprinkle thick, a contrast to the dark pillar of the porch. "I just returned an hour ago," he added as casually as though food for gossip had not been avoided by a hair's breadth and was not still imminent. "It's good, unqualifiedly, to be back."

Armstrong returned to his seat, a bit uncertainly. His hands were trembling uncontrollably; in self-defence he thrust them deep into his pockets.

"Have you been out of town?" he asked.

"Yes, for over a month." No affectation in that even friendliness. He laughed suddenly in tolerant, all but impersonal, self-analysis. "And I'm tired—tired until the marrow of my bones aches." He laughed again. "It seems as though I never was so tired in my life."

Armstrong looked at him, in a sudden flash of the old confidence and admiration.

"I beg your pardon, then," he said hurriedly. "I didn't know that you had been away, of course, and rather fancied, from your coming so unexpected—And that again after two years almost—You can understand how it was possible, can't you? I'm ashamed."

"Certainly I can understand," easily. "Let's all forget it. I have already." He smiled an instant comprehensively fair into the blue eyes, then characteristically abruptly he digressed. "By the way, Elice," he said, "can't we have some of those cookies of yours? I've dreamed of them, along with other things, until—Do, please, if they're in stock. I mean it. Still down at Phelps's are you?" he asked the other directly when the girl had gone.

"No." A long pause wherein Armstrong did not look up. "I—left there a couple of weeks ago. I'm not doing anything in particular just now."

The cookies, far-famed and seemingly always available, were on hand, and Roberts relapsed into silence. From her own seat behind them Elice Gleason sat looking at the two men, precisely as she had looked that first evening they had called in company.

"That's a new motor out there, isn't it?" she asked at last.

"Yes." Roberts roused and shook the scattered crumbs off his khaki coat. "It came while I was away. This is the first try-out."

Miss Gleason was examining the big machine with a critical eye. "This is a six-cylinder, I judge. What's become of the old four, Old—"

"Reliable?"

"Yes."

"Disgraced its name." Roberts smiled peculiarly. "I took it along with me when I went West. It's scrapped out there on the Nevada desert, God knows where, thirty miles from nowhere. I fancy the vultures are wondering right now what in the world it is."

"You had an accident?"

"Rather." Roberts got to his feet deliberately. "Some other time I'll tell you the story, if you wish. It would take too long now, and it's entirely too hot here." He looked at his two listeners impartially. "Besides, there's other business more urgent. I have a curiosity to see how quickly the six-eighty out there will eat up thirty miles. It's guaranteed to do it in twenty-five minutes. Won't you come along?

"I'll take the rumble and you two sit forward," he added as they hesitated. "You can drive as well as I can, Elice."

"Not to-day; some other time," declined Armstrong, hurriedly. He started up to avoid a change of purpose, and to cover any seeming precipitancy lit a cigarette with deliberation. "I was going, really, anyway."

Roberts did not insist, nor did he dissimulate.

"As you wish. I meant it or I shouldn't have made the suggestion. Better glue on your hair if you accept, Elice. I have a presentiment that I'll let her out to-day." He started down the walk. "I'm ready when you are."

Behind him the man and the girl exchanged one look.

"Come, Steve," said the girl in a low voice. "I ask it."

"No," Armstrong's thin face formed a smile, a forced, crooked smile; "I meant what I said, too, or I wouldn't have refused. Likewise I also have a presentiment—of a different kind. Good-bye."

"Steve!"

"No."

And that was all.

Out in the long street, University Row, glided the big red roadster; slowly through the city limits, more rapidly through the suburbs, then, as the open country beyond came to view, it began gradually to find itself.

"Want to see her go, do you, Elice?" asked Roberts, as the town behind them grew indistinct in a fog of dust.

"Yes, if you wish."

"If I wish." Roberts brought the goggles down from his forehead significantly. "If I wish," he repeated, the inflection peculiar. He looked ahead. The broad prairie road, dust white in its July whiteness, stretched straight out before them, without a turn or a curve, direct as the crow flies for forty miles, and on through two counties, as he knew. A light wind, begot of their motion alone, played on their faces, mingled with the throbbing purr of the engine in their ears. "If I wish," for the third time; and notch by notch the throttle began to open.

On they went, the self-evolved breeze a gale now, the throb of the big motor a continuous moan, the cloud of dust behind them a dull brown bank against the sky. On they went over convex grades that tilted gently first to the right, then to the left, over culverts that spoke one single note of protest, over tiny bridges that echoed hollow at the impact; past dazzling green cornfields and yellow blocks of ripening grain, through great shadows of homestead groves and clumps of willows that marked the lowest point of swales, on—on—

Roberts leaned over close, but his eyes did not leave the road for the fraction of a second.

"Afraid, girl?" he asked.

"No."

Again the man looked ahead. They were fair in the open now, already far from the city. It was the heat of a blistering Sunday and not a team or a pedestrian was astir. Ahead, for a mile, for miles perhaps, as far as they could see, not an animate dot marred the surface of the taut, stretched, yellow-white ribbon.

"Shall I let her out, Elice?"

"Yes."

"Sure you're not afraid—in the least?"

"Certain."

Again the throttle lever and its companion spark began to move around the tiny sextant, approaching nearer and nearer. Simultaneously, sympathetic, as though actuated by the same power, the hand of the speedometer on the dash began to crawl up and up. They had been all but racing before; but now—

Behind them the cloud of dust rose higher and higher, and darker and darker as the suction increased. To either side was no longer yellow and green distinct, but a mingling, indistinct, mottled unreality. Ahead the ribbon of yellow and white seemed to rise up and throw itself into their faces; again and again endlessly. The engine no longer moaned. It roared as a fire under draft. The wind was a wall that held them back like a vise in their places. In the flash of a glance the man looked at the face of the dial. The single arm was pasted black over the numeral sixty. Once more the throttle advanced a notch, the spark lever two—and the hand halted at sixty-five. The wind gripped them afresh, and like human fingers grappled with them. Up, fairly level with their eyes, lifted the advancing yellow-white ribbon. By his side, though he did not look, the man knew that the girl had covered her face with her hands, was struggling against the gale to breathe. He was struggling himself, through wide-opened nostrils, his lips locked tight. On his bare hands the sweat gushed forth and, despite the suction, glistened bright. Yet once more, the last time the throttle moved, the spark—and met on the sextant. With its last ounce of power the great car responded, thrilled; one could feel it, a vital thing. Once again the speed-hand on the indicator stirred; but this time the man did not see it, dared not look even for the fraction of a second. Like grim death, grim life, he clung to the wheel; his eyes not on the road beneath but a quarter of a mile ahead. About him the scuttling earth shaded from motley to gray; but he did not see. A solitary tree loomed ahead beside the ribbon, and seemed to crack like a rifle report as they flashed past. At the radiator vent a tiny cloud of steam arose, caught the gale, and stung damp on his cheeks. Far ahead, then nearer and nearer miraculously, a blot of green that he knew was the tree fringe of a river, took form, swept forward to meet them, came nearer and nearer, arose like a wall—

Back into neutral, separating until they were once more opposite, went the two companions of the sextant. Simultaneously again the speed indicator followed the backward trail. Incredibly swift the gale dwindled, until it barely fanned their cheeks. The roar of the great engine subsided, until once more it was a gentle murmur. The vivid green and the dull yellow of summer took their respective places; and like a live thing, beaten and cowed, the big car drew up at the very edge of the grove, left the yellow road-ribbon, rustled a moment amid the half-parched grass and halted in the shadow blot of a big water maple—thirty miles almost to a rod from the city limits they had left.

A moment the two humans in the seat remained in their places, breathing hard. Deliberately, almost methodically, Roberts wiped the sweat from his face.

"Thirty-two minutes, the clock says," he commented. "We dawdled though at first. At the finish—" He looked at the indicator peculiarly. "I'd really like to have known, for sure."

The girl stood up. She trembled a little.

"Would you really? Perhaps—"

"You looked, Elice? I fancied you shut your eyes."

"I did—only for a second. It read seventy-two."

Roberts turned a switch and the last faint purr ceased.

"I imagined, almost, you'd be afraid," he said evenly.

"I was—horribly," simply.

"You were; and still—I won't do it again, Elice."

Without a word the girl stepped to the ground. In equal silence the man followed. Taking off the long khaki coat he spread it on the ground amid the shadow and indicated his handiwork with a nod. For a half-minute perhaps he himself remained standing, however, his great shoulders squared, his big fingers twitching unconsciously. Recollecting, he dropped on the grass beside her.

"Pardon me, Elice," he apologized bluntly, "for frightening you." He smiled, the infrequent, tolerant, self-analytic smile. "I somehow couldn't help doing what I did. I knew it would break out sometime soon. I couldn't help it."

For a moment the girl inspected him, her head, just lifted, resting on her locked arms, her eyelids half closed.

"You knew—what? Something's happened I know; something unusual, very. I never saw you before as you are to-day. I'd almost say you had nerves. Do you care to tell me?"

Roberts was still smiling.

"Do you care to have me tell you?" he countered.

"Yes, if you wish."

"If I wish—if I wish—you told me that once before, you recall."

"Yes."

"And I proceeded to frighten you—horribly. You said so."

"Yes," again.

"Does that mean you wish to be frightened again? Do you enjoy it?"

"Enjoy it? I don't know. I'm curious to listen, if you care to tell me."

Roberts had stretched himself luxuriously on the cool sod. He looked up steadily, through the tangled leaves, at the dotted blue beyond.

"There's nothing to frighten you this time," he said. "Nothing to tell much, just—money."

"I gathered as much."

"And why, Elice?"

"Several reasons. First of all, a practical man doesn't carry an automobile half across the continent by express without a definite stake involved. Later he doesn't 'scrap,' as you say, that same machine without regret unless the stake was big—and won."

"You think I won, then?"

"I know."

"And again, why?"

The girl flashed a glance, but he was not looking at her.

"Because you always win," she said simply.

"Always?" A pause. "Always, Elice?"

"Always in matters of—money."

The man lay there still, looking up. Barely a leaf in the big maple was astir, not a single sensate thing. Had they been the only two people alive on a desert expanse they could not have been more isolated, more completely alone. Yet he pursued the lead no further, neither by word nor suggestion. Creeping through a tiny gap a ray of sunlight glared in his eyes, and he shifted enough to avoid it. That was all.

In her place the girl too shifted, just so she could see him more distinctly.

"Tell me about it," she said. "I'm listening."

"You're really interested? I don't care to bore you."

"Yes, really. I never pretend with you."

Slowly Roberts sat up, his head bare, his fingers locked over his knees.

"Very well. I 'phoned, you remember, that I was going West to look at a mining claim."

"Yes."

"What I should have said, to be exact, was that I was going to file on one, if it wasn't too late. I'd already seen it, on paper, and ore from it; had it assayed myself. It ran above two hundred dollars. It was one of those things that happen outside of novels oftener than people imagine. The man who furnished the specimens was named Evans,—a big, raw-boned cowboy I met down in the Southwest, where I've got an interest in a silver mine. He'd contracted the fever and worked for our company for a time. When the Nevada craze came on he got restless and wanted to go too. He hadn't a second shirt to his back so I grub-staked him. Nothing came of it and I staked him again. This time he came here personally to report. He had some ore with him and a map; just that and nothing more. Whether he'd found anything worth while he didn't know, didn't imagine he had, as it was a new section that hadn't produced as yet. He hadn't even taken the trouble to secure his claim. What he wanted was more money, grub money; and he had brought the specimen along as a teaser. He swore he hadn't mentioned the matter to a soul except me. There wasn't any hurry either, he said, or danger. The prospect was forty miles out on the desert from Tonopah, no railroad nearer, and no one was interested there much as yet. If I'd advance him another thousand, though—I'd been backing him a thousand dollars at a time—he'd go back and file regular, and when I'd had an assay made, if the thing looked good, he'd sell to me outright for five thousand cash."

For the first time the speaker halted, looked at the listener directly.

"Still interested, are you?" he queried. "It's all money, money from first to last."

"Yes, go on. I think I saw this man Evans, didn't I, around with you for several days?"

"Possibly. I kept him here while I was getting a report. I'd seen some ore before and the scent looked warm to me. Besides, I knew Evans, and under the circumstances I felt better to keep him in sight. I did for a week, night and day. He never left me for an hour. He'd been eating my bread and salt for a year, had every reason to be under obligation and loyal, was so tentatively, his coming proved that; but, while one has to trust others up to a certain point in this world, beyond that—I've found beyond that it's better not to take chances, even on obligation.... Have you ever known anything of the kind yourself?"

The girl was not looking at him now. "I've had little experience with people," she evaded, "very little. Go on, please. I'm interested."

"Well, the report came the day I 'phoned you, on the last delivery. Evans was killing time, as usual, about the office and I called him into my private room and locked the door. I read it through to him aloud, every word; and, he didn't seem to take it all in at first, again. All at once the thing came over him, the full meaning of that assay of two hundred dollars to the ton—and he went to pieces, like a fly-wheel that's turned too fast. He simply caved. For ten years he'd been chasing the rainbow of chance, and now all at once, when he'd fairly given up hope, he'd stumbled upon it and the pot of gold together. It was too much for him.

"This was at five o'clock in the afternoon, I say. At six o'clock I unlocked the door and things began to move definitely. What happened in that hour doesn't matter. It wasn't pleasant, and under the circumstances no one would believe me if I told; for I had his written promise to show me the ledge he'd found and to sell whatever right he had to the claim himself to me for twenty-five thousand dollars.... I found it, I have an incontestable title to it, and I refused a million dollars flat for it less than three days ago!"

In her place the girl half raised, met the speaker eye to eye.

"And still, knowing in advance it was worth a fortune, Evans sold to you."

"Yes, voluntarily; begged it of me. I said no one would believe me now, even you—I don't care for the opinion of any one else."

"I don't doubt you, not for a second." The brown eyes had dropped now. "But I can't quite understand."

"No, I repeat once more, no one can understand who wasn't there. He was crazy, avariciously crazy. He wanted the money then, then; wanted to see it, to feel it, that minute. It was his and he wanted it; not the five thousand he'd promised, but five times that. He wouldn't wait. He would have it.

"I tried to reason with him, to argue with him, offered him his own terms if he'd let me develop it; but he wouldn't listen. If I wouldn't accept he'd throw me over entirely, notwithstanding the fact that I'd made the find possible, and sell to some one else—sell something he didn't have; for at last it all came out, why he'd gone crazy and wouldn't wait. He'd lied to me previously. Before he'd left Tonopah he'd talked, told of his find to a half-dozen of his friends, and left them specimens of the same ore he'd brought me. He'd told them everything, in fact, except the location. It developed that he had retained judgment enough to keep back even a hint of that; and they were waiting for him there,—he knew it and I knew it,—waiting his return, waiting to learn the location, and to steal his claim before he could stake it himself."

"And still, feeling certain of that in your own mind, you paid him his price!"

"Every dollar of it—before I took the midnight train West. I raised it after business hours, in a dozen different ways; but I got it. I pooled for security everything I had in the world—except Old Reliable; I kept that free for a purpose,—my house, my library, my stock in the traction company, some real estate I own. I had to give good measure because I had to have the money right then. And I got it. It was a pull but I got it."

The girl's head was back on her folded arms once more, the long lashes all but covering her eyes.

"Supposing Evans had been lying to you after all," she suggested, "in other things besides the one you mentioned."

Over Roberts' face flashed a momentary smile.

"I told you we were locked in that room together for an hour. He wasn't lying to me after that time had passed, rest assured. Besides, I wasn't entirely helpless or surprised. I'd been out in that country myself and Evans wasn't the only man I had reporting. I'd been waiting for a chance of this kind from the day the first prospect developed at Goldfield. I knew it would come sometime—if I waited my chance."

"So you gambled—with every cent you had in the world."

"Yes. All life is a gamble. If I had lost I was only thirty-five and the earth is big. Besides, to all the world I was still 'old man' Roberts, not 'Darley.' There was yet plenty of time—if I lost."

"You went West that same evening, you say." The long lashes were all but touching now. "What then?"

"Yes, with Evans in the same Pullman section and Old Reliable in the express car forward. I had an idea in my head and followed it out. I felt as certain as I was of my own name that they'd have scouts out to wire ahead when Evans was coming; so it wouldn't be any use to get off at an obscure place. I also knew that the chances were I couldn't get a conveyance there at once for love or money; so Old Reliable was already—good and ready. Every tank was full. The tonneau was packed: ten gallons extra gas, five gallons of water, a week's rations—everything I could think of that we might need. We'd go through to the end of the line, all right, but if I could help it we shouldn't wait long after we got there. And we didn't."

This time the girl did not interrupt, either with comment or gesture; merely lay there listening.

"Ten minutes after we struck town we were away, under our own power. It was night, but we were away just the same. And that's where we got the lead,—a half hour's lead. They knew, all right, that we'd come, fancied they knew everything—but they hadn't planned on Old Reliable. It took them just that long to come to and make readjustment. Then the real fun began. There was no moon, and out on the desert the night was as dark as a pocket. We simply had to have a light even if it gave us away. Evans thought he knew the road; but, if there ever was one, before we'd gone ten miles we'd lost it. After that I drove by compass entirely—and instinct. But I couldn't go fast. I didn't dare to. For an hour and a half—the indicator showed we'd gone twenty-four miles—we had everything to ourselves, seemingly the entire world. We hadn't heard a sound or seen a live thing. Then, as we came up on a rise, Evans looked back and saw a light,—just one light, away, away back like a star. A few seconds afterward it disappeared and we made a couple more miles. We mounted a second rise and—this time Evans swore. He was with me by this time, body and soul, game to the finish; for the light wasn't starlike now by any means. It didn't even twinkle. It just simply rose up out of the ground, shone steady, vanished for a time, and rose up anew with the lay of the country. They were on our trail at last, they couldn't miss it. It was plain as a wagon road, and they were making two miles to our one. They must have had a good car; but anyway everything was with them. They could drive to the limit by our trail; but I couldn't, for I didn't know what was ahead. I let her out, though, and Evans watched. He didn't swear now, he just watched; and every time that light showed it was nearer. At last,—we'd made thirty-two miles by that time,—he saw two lights behind instead of one—and saw them red, I judge, for how he swore! It was then or never and I opened the throttle to the last notch and we flew over everything, through everything until—we stopped."

"You struck something?"

"Yes. I don't know what nor didn't stop to see. The transmission went, I knew that. The engine was still threshing and pounding when we took to our heels. We could hear it and see the two lights coming and we ran—Lord, how we ran! It seems humorous now, but it wasn't humorous then. There was a fortune at stake and a big one; for a claim belongs to the chap who puts up the monuments. We ran straight ahead into the night, until we couldn't run another foot; and then we walked, walked, ten miles if an inch, until the two lights of Old Reliable became one, and then went out of sight entirely. Then we lay down and panted and waited for daylight.... That's about all, I guess."

"They didn't follow you, then?" The girl was sitting up now, the brown eyes wide open.

"They couldn't. A hound might have done so, but a human being couldn't that night." Roberts dropped back to the grass, again avoiding the rift of light. "At daylight Evans got his bearings, and that day we found the claim, built our monuments, tacked up the notice and the rest. I learned afterwards there were six men in the machine behind; but I never saw any of them—until the day I left. They made me an offer then."

"And Old Reliable?"

Roberts hesitated, then he laughed oddly.

"I paid a parting visit there too. The remains weren't decent junk when the same six got through expressing their feelings that night."



CHAPTER V

FULFILMENT

An hour had passed. As the afternoon sun sank lower the shadow blot beneath the big maple had lengthened and deepened. In consequence the annoying light-rift was no more. Overhead the leaves were vibrating, barely vibrating, with the first breath of breeze of evening born. Otherwise there was no change; just the big red roadster and the man and the girl idling beside.

"Poverty, work, subservience," conversation had drifted where it would, at last had temporarily halted, with the calendar rolled back twenty years; "poverty, work, subservience," the man had paused there to laugh, the odd, repressed laugh that added an emphasis no mere words could express. "Yes; they're old friends of mine, very old friends, very. I'm not likely to forget the contrast they've made, ever, no matter what the future holds."

"You've not forgotten, then, what's past,—overlooked it? Isn't it better to forget, sometimes,—some things?"

"Forget?" The man was looking straight up into space. "I wish I could forget, wish it from the bottom of my soul. It makes me—hard at times, and I don't want to be hard. But I can't ever. Memory is branded in too deeply."

The girl was picking a blade of grass to pieces, bit by bit.

"I'm disappointed. I fancied you could do anything you wished," she said low. "That's what has made me afraid of you sometimes."

The man did not stir.

"Are you afraid of me sometimes, really?" he asked.

"Yes, horribly—as much afraid as when we were coming out here to-day."

"I'm sorry, Elice, sorry for several reasons. Most of all because I love you."

It was the first word of the kind that had ever passed between them. Yet neither showed surprise, nor did either change position. It was as though he had said that gravitation makes the apple fall, or that the earth was round, a thing they had both known for long, had become instinctively adjusted to.

"I knew that," said the girl gently, "and know too that you're sorry I am afraid. You can't help it. If it weren't true, though, you wouldn't be you."

The man looked at her gravely.

"You think it will always be that way?" he asked. "You'll always be afraid at times, I mean?"

"Yes. You're bigger than I am. I can't understand you, I never can wholly. I've given up hope. We're all afraid of things we can't completely understand."

Silently the man passed his hand across his face, unconsciously; his arm fell lax at his side. As the girl had known, he did not follow the lead, would not follow it unless she directed the way.

"You said you fancied I could forget what's past," he said at last. "Did you honestly believe that?"

"Yes, or ignore it."

"Ignore it—or forget!" The fingers of the great hands twitched. "Some things one can't ignore or forget, girl. To do so would be superhuman. You don't understand."

"No; you've never told me. You've suggested at times, merely suggested; nothing more."

"You'd like to know why—the reason? It would help you to understand?"

"Yes; I think it would help."

"It might even lead to making you—unafraid?"

A halt this time, then, "Yes, it might possibly do even that."

Again the man looked at her for long in silence, and again very gravely.

"I'll tell you, then," he said. "It isn't pleasant for me to tell nor for you to hear; but I'd like you to know why—if you can. They're all back, back, the things I'd like to forget and can't, a very long way. They date from the time I first knew anything."

The girl settled deeper into the soft coat, her eyes half closed.

"You told me once you couldn't remember your mother even," she suggested.

"No, nor my father, nor any other relatives, if I ever had any. I was simply stranded in Kansas City when it was new. I wasn't born there, though, but out West on a prairie ranch somewhere. The tradition is that my parents were hand-to-mouth theatrical people, who'd got the free home craze and tried to live out on the west Kansas desert, who were dried out and starved out until they went back on the road; and who then, of course, didn't want me. I don't know. Anyway, when my brain awoke I was there in Kansas City. As a youngster I had a dozen homes—and none. I was any one's property—and no one's. I did anything, accepted whatever Providence offered, to eat. Animals must live and I was no exception. The hand seemingly of every man and woman in the world was against me, and I conformed to the inevitable. Any one weaker than I was my prey, any one stronger my enemy. I learned to fight for my own, to run when it was wisest, to take hard knocks when I couldn't avoid them—and say nothing. It was all in the game. I know this isn't pleasant to hear," he digressed.

"I'm listening. Go on, please."

"That was the first stage. Then, together with a hundred other similar little beasts, a charitable organization got hold of me and transplanted me out into the country, as they do old footsore hack horses when they get to cluttering the pavement. Chance ordained that I should draw an old Norwegian farmer, the first generation over, and that he should draw me. I fancy we were equally pleased. His contract was to feed me and clothe me and,—I was twelve at the time, by the way,—to get out of me in return what work he could. There was no written contract, of course; but nevertheless it was understood just the same.

"He fulfilled his obligation—in his way. He was the first generation over, I repeat, and had no more sense of humor than a turtle. He saw that I had all I could eat—after I'd done precisely so much work, his own arbitrary stint, and not a minute before. If I was one iota short I went hungry as an object-lesson. He gave me clothes to wear, after every other member of the family had discarded them, in supreme disregard for suitability or fit. He sent me to school—during the months of January and February, when there was absolutely nothing else to do, and when I should have been in the way at home. At times of controversy he was mighty with the rod. He was, particularly at the beginning of our intimacy, several sizes larger than I. It was all a very pleasant arrangement, and lasted four years. It ended abruptly one Thanksgiving Day.

"I remember that day distinctly, as much so as yesterday. Notwithstanding it was a holiday, I'd been husking corn all day steady, from dark until dark. There was snow on the ground, and I came in wet through, chattering cold, hungry, and dog-tired—to find the entire family had left to celebrate the evening with a neighbor. They did that often of a holiday, but usually they left word. This time they'd forgotten, or didn't care. Anyway, it didn't matter, for that day had been the last straw. So far as I was concerned the clock had struck twelve and a new circuit had begun.

"I looked about the kitchen for supper, but there was none, so I proceeded to prepare one suitable to the occasion. Among other things, the farmer raised turkeys for the market and, although the season was late, there were a few birds left for seed. I went out to the barn with a lantern and picked the plumpest gobbler I could find off the roost, and an hour later had him in the oven. This was at eight o'clock in the evening. While he was baking I canvassed the old farmer's wardrobe. I'd grown like a mushroom those last years and, though I was only sixteen, a suit of his ready-made clothes was a fair fit. I got into it grimly. I also found a dog-skin fur coat and, while it smelled a good deal like its original owner, it would be warm, and I laid it aside carefully for future reference.

"Then came supper. I didn't hurry in the least, but I had a campaign in mind, so I went to work. When that bird was done I ate it, and everything else I could find. I had the appetite of an ostrich, and when I was through there wasn't enough left for a hungry cat. I even considered taking the family cat in to the feast,—they had one, of course, and it always looked hungry, too; but I had a sort of pride in my achievement and I wanted to leave the remains as evidence.

"It was ten o'clock by this time and no one had shown up. I was positively sorry. I'd hoped the old farmer would return and find me. I had a few last words to say to him, some that had been lying heavy on my mind for a long time. But he didn't come, and I couldn't wait any longer; so I wrote them instead. I put on the dog-skin coat and started away on foot into the night. If I'd had money I would have left the value of the clothes; but he'd never given me a dollar in all those four years, so I took them on account. It was two miles to town and I made it in time to catch the ten-forty-five freight out.

"I forgot one thing, though. I went back after I'd got started a quarter of a mile to say good-bye to the horses. I always liked horses, and old Bill and Jerry and I had been good friends. I rode the pilot of that engine and got into Kansas City the next morning. That was the second stage.... Still interested, are you, Elice?"

"Yes."

"Next, I landed in the hardwood region of Missouri, the north edge of the Ozarks. It was the old story of one having to live, and I'd seen an ad in the papers for 'loggers wanted.' I had answered it, and the man in charge dropped on me like a hawk and gave me transportation by the first train. Evidently men for the job were not in excess, and when I'd been there a day I knew why. It was the most God-forsaken country I'd ever known, away back in the mountains, where civilization had ceased advancing fifty years before. The job was a contract to deliver so many thousand feet of lumber in the log daily at the mill on the nearest railway. There was a five-mile haul, and we worked under a boss in crews of four. Each crew had to deliver eight big logs a day, seven days in the week, three hundred and sixty-five days in the year. How it was done, when they were cut, when hauled, was not the boss's affair—just so the logs came. When we of the crews ate or slept was no one's affair—just so we kept on the job. No single man could handle one of those big cuts, no single mule team haul it in places over those cursed mountain roads. That's why we worked in crews. On the average we worked eighteen hours a day. In summer this was long, in winter it seemed perpetual; but I was in it and I was going to stick—or thought I was. The other three in my gang were middle-aged men,—hard drinkers, good swearers, tough as oak themselves. The boss was a little tobacco-eating, bow-legged Irishman. I never, before or since, knew a man who could swear as he could, or drink so when he struck town. It seems to go with the logging business; but he was a master.

"I struck this place in the winter. It was in the winter following, again by chance on a holiday, but Christmas this time, that I quit. They don't have much cold down in that country and usually but little snow; but this year there had been a lot,—soft, wet snow, half rain, that melted on the ground and made the roads almost impassable. For that reason we'd been getting behind in our contract. We simply could not make two trips a day; and Murphy, the boss, grew black and blacker. He swore that if we couldn't make but one trip a day on that one haul we'd have to carry two logs each instead of one. The thing was barely possible on good roads, wholly impossible with the ground softened; but he was the boss, his word law, and before daylight on this Christmas morning we were loaded and on the road.

"I was on the head wagon with Murphy behind me, the other three following. The first half-mile was down grade and we got along all right. Then came the inevitable up grade following and the team began to flounder. They were mules, of course,—horses could never have stood for a day the grief of that mountain hauling,—great big-framed, willing fellows that in condition would pull anything any team could pull; but now they were weak and tired, and so thin that their bones almost stuck through their hides from the endless grind. They did their best, though, and struggled along for a few rods. The wheels struck a rock in the road and they stopped. I urged them on and they tried again, but the load wouldn't budge. There was but one thing to do,—to double with the team behind, and I slid off to make the coupling.

"Murphy had been watching it all in silence,—a bad sign with him. When he saw what I was going to do he held up his hand to the rear team, which meant:'Stay where you are.' 'Give over the lines,' he said to me.

"I knew what that meant. I'd seen him cripple animals before; but that was when I first came. Since then I'd had another year to grow and to get hard and tough. I was going on eighteen and as big as I am now almost; and I wasn't afraid of him then or of any human being alive.

"'It's no use,' I answered. 'We may as well double and save time.'

"He said something then, no matter what; I was used to being sworn at.

"'No,' I said.

"He jumped off the load at that. I thought it was between us, so I jerked off my big mittens to be ready; but the mules' turn was to come first, it seems. He didn't wait for anything, just simply went at them, like a maniac, like a demon. I won't tell you about it—it was too horribly brutal—or about what followed. I simply saw red. For the first time and the last time in my life, I hope, I fought a man—fought like a beast, tooth and nail. When it was over he was lying there in the mud we'd made, unconscious; and I was looking down at him and gasping for breath. I was bleeding in a dozen places, for he had a knife; but I never noticed. I suppose I stood there so for a minute looking at him, the other three men who had come up looking at me, and not one of us saying a word. I reached over and felt of him from head to foot. There were no bones broken and he was breathing steadily. So I did what I suppose was a cruel thing, but one I've never regretted to this day, though I've never seen him since. I simply rolled him over and over in the mud and slush out of the road—and left him to come to. After that we pulled off the second log from each of the four wagons and left them there beside the track. Then we drove on to town, leaving him there; sitting up by that time, still dazed, by the side of the road. There was just one logging train a day on that stub, and when we pulled into town it was waiting. Without a word of understanding, or our pay for the month, the four of us took that train and went our four separate ways. That's the third stage.... Begin to understand a little, do you, Elice?"

"Yes; I begin, just begin, to understand—many things."

Roberts shifted position silently, his arms crossed under his head for a pillow. But he was still looking straight up, through the gently rocking leaves at the infinite beyond.

"The next stage found me in a southern Iowa soft-coal mine. The explanation is simple. I had saved a few dollars; while they lasted I drifted, and to the north. When they were gone I had to work or starve. I had no education whatever, no special training even. I was merely a big, healthy animal, fit only for hard, physical work. I happened to be in a farming and mining community. It was Winter and there was nothing to do on a farm, so by the law of necessity I went to work heaving coal.

"I stayed there a little over seven months and during that time I scarcely saw the sun. I'd go into the tunnel at seven in the morning, take my lunch with me, and never come out until quitting time. I worked seven days in the week here too. There wasn't any union and, anyway, no one seemed to think of doing differently. At first it used to worry me, that being always in the dark. My imagination kept working, picturing sunlight and green things; after a bit that stage passed and I used to dread to come out of the tunnel. The glare hurt my eyes and made me blink like an owl in the daytime. I felt chilly, too, and shivered so my teeth chattered. But I stuck to it, and after a few months the thing seemed natural and almost as though I'd been there always. I began to cease to think and to work unconsciously, like a piece of machinery. I even quit counting the days. They were all the same, so what was the use? I just worked, worked, and the coal dust ground into me and sweated into me until I looked more like a negro than a white man.

"Time drifted on this way, from Winter until Spring, from Spring until Summer; at last the something unusual that always comes about sooner or later happened, and I awoke. It was just after dinner one day and I'd gone back to the job. I had a lot of loose coal knocked down in the drift and was shovelling steadily into a car when, away down the main tunnel, I saw a bunch of lights bobbing in the darkness. It wasn't the time of day for an inspection, and anyway there were several people approaching, so I waited to see what it meant.

"They came on slowly, stopping to look at everything by the way. At last they got near enough so I could make them out; there were three men and a woman. I recognized one of the men by this time,—our foreman, Sharp. He was guiding the others and I knew then they were visitors, owners probably, because no stranger had ever come before while I was there. The woman, I saw that she was a girl now, called one of the men 'father'; and from the way she spoke I guessed why she was along too. She'd come anyway, whether they approved or not. The drift I was working in was a new one, just opened; and when they got there the whole group stopped a little way off, and Sharp began explaining, talking fast and giving figures. If any of the men saw me they didn't pay any attention; they just listened, and now and then one of them asked a question. But the girl wasn't interested or listening. She was all eyes, looking about here and there, taking in everything; and after a bit she noticed the light in my cap and came peering over to see what it meant. I just stood there watching her and she came quite close, all curiosity, until finally she could see my face. She stopped.

"'Oh,' she said, 'I thought it was just a light. It's a man.'

"'Yes, it's a man,' I said.

"She was looking at me steadily by this time, wholly curious.

"'A—a white man?' she asked.

"I thought a moment, then I understood.

"'Yes, a white man,' I answered.

"She came up to the car at that and looked in. She glanced back at me. Evidently she wasn't entirely satisfied.

"'How old are you?' she asked. 'You look awfully old.'

"I leaned over on the car too; I'd begun to think. I remembered that to me she seemed so very, very young; and all at once it flashed over me that probably I wasn't a day older.

"'Eighteen,' I said.

"'Eighteen!' She stared. 'Why, I'm eighteen. And you—have you been here long?'

"I suppose I smiled. Anyway I know I scared her. She drew back.

"'I don't know,' I said. 'I've forgotten. If you'll tell me the date maybe I can answer. I don't know.'

"'You don't know! You can't mean that.'

"'Yes, I've forgotten.'

"She didn't say a word after that, just looked at me—as a youngster looks when it goes to the circus for the first time. I fancy we stood there half a minute so; then at last, interrupting, the man she'd called 'father' looked over and saw us. He frowned, I could see that, and said something to the foreman. He spoke her name."

Just for a moment Roberts shifted his head, looking at his silent listener steadily. "What do you fancy was that name he called, Elice?"

Elice Gleason started involuntarily, and settled back in her place.

"I haven't the slightest idea, of course."

"It wasn't an ordinary name. At that time I'd never heard it before."

"I'm not good at guessing."

Roberts shifted back to his old position.

"It was 'Elice.' 'Elice, come,' he said.

"The daughter hesitated. I imagine she wanted to ask me several things yet,—whether I had cloven feet, for instance, and lived on spiders; but she didn't. She went back to the other three and they moved on. That was the last I saw of them.

"I worked the rest of that day, did about three men's work, I remember. That night I drew my pay and went to bed; but I didn't go to sleep. I did a lot of thinking and made up my mind to something. I decided I'd been the under dog long enough. I haven't changed the opinion since. Next day I saw the sun when it was straight overhead and soaked the coal dust out of my skin—as much as possible.... That's all of the fourth stage.... Hadn't I better stop?"

The girl shook her head, but still without looking at him.

"No; I want to learn what you did after that, after you woke up."

"I went West. I hadn't seen the sun or the sky for so long that I was hungry for it. In Omaha I fell in with a bunch of cattlemen and, as I always liked to handle stock, that settled it. I accepted an offer as herder; they didn't call it that, but it amounted to the same. I had a half-dozen ponies, rations for six months, and something under a thousand head of stock to look after. By comparison it wasn't work at all; only I was all alone and it took all the time, day and night. I didn't sleep under a roof half a dozen nights from July to October. When the cattle bunched at night I simply rolled up in a blanket where they were and watched the stars until I forgot them; the next thing I knew it was morning. I had hours to read in though, hours and hours; and that was another thing I was after. For I could read, I wasn't quite illiterate, and I was dead in earnest at last. When the Fall round-up came I quit and went to Denver, and portered in a big hotel and went to night school.

"There isn't much to tell after this. I drifted all over the West and the Southwest during the next few years. I got the mining fever and prospected in Colorado and California and Arizona; but I never struck anything. I learned something though; and that was that it isn't the fellow who makes a find who wins, but the chap who buys the prospect, almost invariably. That was useful. Every Winter I landed in a big city and went to school,—night school or mining school or commercial school. Finally it dawned upon me that I was taking the long road to an end, that the short cut was to be really ready to do a thing before making the attempt. I decided to go to a university. That would take years, and meantime I had to live. I could make a living in a little city easier than a big one, so I came here.... You know the rest."

Elice Gleason sat up, her fingers locked over her knees.

"Yes, I know the rest; but—" She was silent.

"But you don't wholly understand," completed the other. "You don't, even yet, do you, Elice?"

"No, not entirely, even yet."

"Why I can't forget when I wish or help being hard?"

"Yes, when you have such infinite possibilities now."

"Now," supplemented the man evenly, "when society at large couldn't pound me down any longer or prevent my getting out of their power."

The girl did not answer.

Deliberately Roberts sat up; no longer listless or tolerantly self-analytic, but very wide awake, very direct.

"I'll have to tell you a few more reasons, then; read between the lines a bit. I never did this before to any one; never will again—to any one. But I must make you understand what made me as I am. I must; you know why. Tell me to stop when you wish, I'll obey gladly; but don't tell me you don't understand.

"To begin again at the beginning. My parents abandoned me. Why? They were starved to it, forced to it. Self-preservation is the first law. I don't clear them, but I understand. They were starving and irresponsible. I merely paid the price of relief, the price society at large demanded.

"At the first home I had afterward the man drank,—drank to forget that he, too, was an under dog. Some one again must pay the price, and I paid it. Now and then I'd succeed in selling a few papers, or do an errand, and earn a few pennies. After the manner of all lesser animals I'd try to hide with them; but he'd find me every time. He seemed to have a genius for it. He'd whip me with whatever was handy; at first for trying to hide, later, when I wouldn't cry, because I was stubborn. Finally, after he'd got tired or satisfied, he'd steal my coppers and head for the nearest bar. Once in January I remember a lady I met on the street took me into a store and bought me a new pair of shoes. I hid them successfully for a week. One day he caught me with them on—and pawned them.

"The old farmer the charity folks traded me to was a Lutheran. Every morning after breakfast he read prayers. He never missed a day. Then he'd send me out with one of his sons,—a grown-up man of twenty-two,—and if I didn't do exactly as much work as the son I went hungry until I got it done if it took half the night. He also had a willow sapling he relied upon when hunger didn't prove effective. He'd pray before he used that too,—pray with one hand gripping my neckband so I couldn't get away. I earned a dollar a day—one single solitary dollar—when I was logging oak in the Ozarks. Day after day when we were on the haul I used to strap myself fast to the load to keep from going to sleep and rolling off under the wheels. I got so dead tired that I fell asleep walking, when I did that to keep awake. You won't believe it, but it's true. I've done it more than once.

"I was sick one day in the coal mine, deathly sick. The air at times was awful. I laid down just outside the car track. I thought I was going to die and felt distinctly pleased at the prospect. Some one reported me to the superintendent. He evidently knew the symptoms, for he came with a pail of water and soaked me where I lay, marked time, and went away. I laid there for three hours in a puddle of water and soft coal grime; then I went back to work. I know it was three hours because my time check was docked exactly that much.

"When I was going to night school in Denver the day clerk, who'd got me the place, took half my tips, the only pay I received, to permit me to hold the place. It was the rule, I discovered, the under-dog penalty.

"I said I never struck anything prospecting. I did. I struck a silver lead down in Arizona. While I was proving it a couple of other prospectors came along, dead broke—and out of provisions. I divided food with them, of course—it's the unwritten law—and they camped for the night. We had supper together. That was the last I knew. When I came to it was thirty-six hours later and I was a hundred miles away in a cheap hotel—without even my bill paid in advance. The record showed that claim was filed on the day I disappeared. The mine is paying a hundred dollars a day now. I never saw those two prospectors again. The present owner bought of them square. I don't hold it up against him.

"I went to night school all one winter in San Francisco with a fellow named Stuart, another under dog like myself. We roomed together in a hall-bedroom to save expense and ate fifteen-cent dinners together at the same soup-house. He clerked in a little tobacco store daytimes. I was running an express elevator. We both saved a little money above what it cost to live. Things went on in this way for four months, until the end of the winter term. One morning when I woke up I found he'd gone. I also found that the little money I'd saved was gone. They went together. I never saw either again.

"I had another friend once, I thought. It was after I'd decided to come here to the university. I was harvesting on a wheat ranch in Nebraska, making money to pay for my matriculation. He was a student too, he said, from New York State, and working for the same purpose. We worked there together all through harvest, boiled side by side in the same sun. One day he announced a telegram from home. His mother was dying. He was crazy almost because he hadn't nearly enough money to take him back at once. And there his mother was in New York State dying! I lent him all I had saved,—seventy odd dollars; and he gave me his note, insisted on doing so—though he hoped the Lord would strike him dead if he failed to return the loan within four days. I have that note yet. Perhaps the Lord did strike him dead. I don't know.

"It was nearly September by this time and harvest was over, my job with it, of course; so I started on east afoot, tramping it. I wasn't a particularly handsome specimen, but still I was clean, and I never asked for a meal without offering to work for it. Yet in the three hundred miles I covered before school opened I had four farmers' wives call the dog,—I recorded the number; and I only slept under a roof two nights.

"Even after I came here, after—Elice, don't! I'm a brute to have done this! From the bottom of my soul I beg your pardon."

The girl was weeping repressedly, her face buried in her hands, her whole body tense.

"Elice, please don't! I'm ashamed. I only wanted you to understand; and now—I'm simply ashamed."

"You needn't be at all." As suddenly as it had come the storm abated, under compulsion. "I wanted to know several things very much; and now I think I do know them. At least I don't wonder any more—why." She stood up decisively, disdaining to dry her eyes.

"But we mustn't stop to chatter any more now," she digressed preventingly. "You made me forget all about time, and cooks should never forget that. It's nearly sundown and father—he'll have been hungry for two hours."

Roberts got to his feet slowly. If in the new light of understanding there was more he had intended saying that day, or if at the sudden barring of opportunity he felt disappointment, his face gave no indication of the fact. He merely smiled in tolerant appreciation of the suggestion last made.

"Doesn't your father know the remedy for hunger yet, at his age?" he queried whimsically.

"Knows it, yes," with an odd laugh; "but it would never occur to him unless some one else suggested it."

A pause, then she looked her companion full in the face, significantly so. "He's dependent and irresponsible as a child or—as Steve Armstrong. They're helpless both, absolutely, left to themselves; and speaking of that, they're both by themselves now." She started for the motor hastily, again significantly so.

"Come, please," she requested.



CHAPTER VI

CRISIS

It was nearly dark when the big red car drew up in front of the Gleason cottage and, the girl only alighting, moved on again slowly down the street. At the second crossing beyond, out of sight of the house, it switched abruptly to the right for four blocks, into the poorer section of the town, and stopped before a battered, old-fashioned residence. A middle-aged man in his shirt sleeves sat on the step smoking a pipe. At a nod from the driver he advanced to the curb.

"Mr. Armstrong in, Edwards?" asked Roberts directly.

The man shook his head.

"Been here, has he?"

"Not since he left this morning; about ten o'clock it was."

Roberts paused, his hand on the clutch lever.

"Will you have him 'phone me when he comes, please?"

"Yes, certainly."

"Thank you."

The next stop was at the office, dark with a Sabbath darkness; but not for long. Within the space of a few minutes after he came, every light switched on, the windows open wide, his coat dangling from a chair in the corner, Roberts was at work upon a small mountain of correspondence collected upon his desk, a mountain of which each unit was marked "personal" or "private." At almost the same time a waiter from a near-by cafe entered with a tray of sandwiches and coffee. Thereafter he ate as he worked.

An hour passed. The sandwiches disappeared entirely and the mountain grew slightly smaller. A second hour dragged by and the mountain suffered a second decline. For the first time Roberts halted and glanced at the clock. A moment later he took down the receiver from the 'phone on his desk and gave a number.

"That you, Randall? Has Armstrong been at your place to-night? You haven't seen him at all to-day, then. No; nothing. Just wanted to know, that was all. Good-night."

Another half-hour passed; then, without pausing in his work, Roberts pulled the buzzer lever for a messenger. When the latter appeared he scribbled a few lines on a sheet of paper, addressed an envelope, and gave it to the boy with half a dollar.

"There's a mate to that coin waiting here for you if you can get me an answer within half an hour," he said. "You know the party, don't you?"

"Sure. Yes, sir."

"Follow up the trail, then. You've lost one minute of your thirty already."

For the third time he returned to his work, halting only when the messenger in blue returned.

"Can't deliver it, sir," explained the latter curtly. "I've been all over town and no one has seen him. Thank you, sir. Good-night."

For several minutes this time Darley Roberts sat in his desk chair thinking, quite motionless. The clock on the wall recorded midnight and he compared the time with his watch to make certain of its accuracy. Once more he took down the telephone receiver.

"This you, Elice?" he asked after a moment. "Can I be of service? Never mind, no need to explain. I understand. I'll be right up."

In spite of the city speed limit the big red car made those twelve blocks intervening in sixty-four seconds flat.

* * * * *

"How did you ever know?"—infinite wonder, infinite relief as well in the tone. "Tell me that, please."

"I didn't know, of course. I merely guessed. Has it been long?"

Involuntarily the girl shuddered, then held herself steady with an effort.

"Yes, since dinner. He came while we were eating; and father—"

"I understand," preventingly. "Don't worry. It's all over with now. Did any one else see—any of the neighbors, I mean?"

"I think not. It was after dark and—Oh, it's simply horrible! horrible!"

"Yes," gently. "I appreciate that. Let's not speak about it. Your two roomers are both in?"

The girl nodded.

"They didn't suspect anything wrong either?"

"No, the hammock was dark—and father watched. They went right up to their rooms without stopping."

Roberts nodded, and looked out of the window. The light in the residence district of the town was on a midnight schedule and was now cut off. He turned back. A moment he stood so, silent, facing the girl there in the dimly lighted hall. Under a sudden instinct he reached out and laid a hand compellingly on each of her shoulders, holding her captive.

"You don't misunderstand my intruding here to-night, do you, Elice?" he asked directly.

"Misunderstand!" The girl looked at him steadily, the dark circles about her eyes eloquent. "Never. How can you fancy such a thing! Never."

"And you're willing to trust me to bring everything out right? It will be all right, take my word for that."

Still the girl did not stir, but gazed at him. "Yes, I trust you implicitly, always," she said.

A moment longer the hands held their place before they dropped.

"All right, then," he said perfunctorily, "go to bed. I'll take care of Steve—to-night and in the future. Don't worry. Good-night."

"Wait," a hand was upon his arm, a compelling hand. "You mean—"

Roberts smiled deliberately, his slow, impersonal smile.

"Exactly what I said. This will be a lesson Steve should never forget. I can't imagine his repeating it—ever. Besides, I'll help him not to. I have a plan."

"You mean to help him as—as you helped Harry Randall and Margery?"

A moment the man was silent, though he smiled.

"No, not exactly. I'll merely assist him to help himself. I think perhaps it's only my duty anyway, that maybe I'm more or less responsible. By the way, don't be surprised if he disappears for a bit. He may possibly decide to go out of town. That's all, for now."

The girl drew a long breath.

"You responsible!" she echoed. "If you're responsible, how, then, about—myself?"

"Elice!" Roberts cut her off peremptorily. "I refuse to listen. Go to bed at once, I insist. I'll come to-morrow and talk if you wish. Just now it's all too near. Good-night again."

An instant later, on the darkened porch without, he had the arm of the doddering old man in the grip of a vise.

"Leave everything here to me," he said swiftly, "and see to Elice." He was leading the other toward the entrance. "Listen. See that she goes to bed—at once; and you too. I'll attend to everything else. Trust me," and very gently he himself closed the door behind the other two.

It was after office hours of the day following when Stephen Armstrong, a bit pale but carefully groomed this time, entered the outer room of Darley Roberts' office and, with decided reluctance, approached the private apartment beyond. The door was open. Seated before the big desk, shirt-sleeved as usual, Roberts sat working. As the newcomer approached he wheeled about.

"Come in," he said simply. "I'm glad to see you."

The visitor took a seat by the open window and looked out rather obviously.

"I just received your note a bit ago," he began perfunctorily, "and called instead of giving you an appointment, as you asked. It's the least I could do after last night." He halted, looking at the building opposite steadily. "I want you to know that I appreciate thoroughly what you did for me then. I—I'm heartily ashamed, of course."

"Don't speak of it, please," swiftly. "I've forgotten it and I'm sure Miss Gleason and her father have done the same. No one else knows, so let's consider it never occurred. It never will again, I'm sure, so what's the use of remembering? Is it agreed?"

Armstrong's narrow shoulders lifted in silence.

"As for not speaking of it again," he answered after a moment, "yes. Whether or not in the future, however—I'm not liar enough to promise things I can't deliver."