itself, but at the second bridge cut round the meadow and on to the marsh. The sky was burning with the soft pink and silver of a cloudless summer dawn. The heavy, bowed grasses splashed him to the knee. All over the marsh, snow-on-the-mountain, globed with dew, made cool sheets of silver, and the swamp milkweed spread its flat, raspberry-colored clusters. There was an almost religious purity about the fresh morning air, the tender sky, the grass and flowers with the sheen of early dew upon them. There was in all living things something limpid and joyous, like the wet morning call of the birds, flying up through the unstained atmosphere. Out of the saffron east a thin, yellow, wine-like sunshine began to gild the fragrant meadows and the glistening tops of the grove. Neil wondered why he did not often come over like this to see the day before men and their activities had spoiled it, while the morning was still unsullied, like a gift handed down from the heroic ages.

Under the bluffs that overhung the marsh he came upon thickets of wild roses, with flaming buds, just beginning to open. Where they had opened, their petals were stained with that burning rose-color which is always gone by noon, a dye made of sunlight and morning and moisture so intense that it cannot possibly last; must fade, like ecstasy. Neil took out his knife and began to cut the stiff stems, crowded with red thorns.

He would make a bouquet for a lovely lady-a bouquet gathered off the cheeks of morning; these roses, only half awake, in the defenselessness of utter beauty. He would leave them just outside one of the French windows

of her bedroom. When she opened her shutters to let in the light, she would find them; and they would perhaps give her a sudden distaste for coarse worldings like Frank Ellinger.

After tying his flowers with a twist of meadow grass, he went up the hill, through the grove, and softly round the still house to the north side of Mrs. Forrester's own room, where the doorlike green shutters were still closed. As he bent to place the flowers on the sill, he heard from within a woman's soft laughter, impatient, indulgent, teasing, eager. Then another laugh, very different, a man's. And it was fat and lazy; ended in something like a yawn.

Neil found himself at the foot of the hill, on the wooden bridge, his face hot, his temples beating, his eyes blind with anger. In his hand he still

carried the prickly bunch of wild roses. He threw them over the wire fence into a mud-hole the cattle had trampled under the bank of the creek. He did not know whether he had left the house by the driveway or had come down through the shrubbery. In that instant between stooping to the window-sill and rising he had lost one of the most beautiful things in his life. Before the dew dried, the morning had been wrecked for him; all subsequent mornings, he told himself bitterly. This day saw the end of that admiration and loyalty that had been like a bloom on his existence. He could never recapture it. It was gone, like the morning freshness of the flowers.

"Lilies that fester," he muttered"lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds."

Grace, variety, the lovely voice, the sparkle of fun and fancy in those dark eyes-all these were nothing. It was

not a moral scruple that she had outraged, but an esthetic ideal. Beautiful women, whose beauty meant more than it said-was their brilliancy always fed by something coarse and concealed? Was that their secret?

§ 5

Neil met his uncle and Captain Forrester when they alighted from the morning train, and drove over to the house with them. The business on which they had gone to Denver was not referred to until they were sitting with Mrs. Forrester in the front parlor. The windows were open, and the perfume of the mock-orange and of June roses was blowing in from the garden. Captain Forrester introduced the subject, after slowly unfolding his handkerchief and wiping his forehead, and his fleshy neck around his low collar.

"Maidy," he said, not looking at her, "I 've come home a poor man. It took about everything there was to square up. You'll have this place, unincumbered, and my pension; that will be about all. The live stock will bring in something."

Neil saw that Mrs. Forrester grew very pale, but she smiled and brought her husband his cigar-stand.

“Oh, well, I expect we can manage, can't we?"

"We can just manage. Not much more. I 'm afraid Judge Pomeroy considers that I acted foolishly."

"Not at all, Mrs. Forrester," the judge exclaimed. "He acted just as I hope I would have done in his place. But I am an unmarried man. There were certain securities, government bonds, which Captain Forrester could have turned over to you, but it would have been at the expense of the depositors."

"I've known men to do that," said the captain, heavily, "but I never considered they paid their wives a compliment. If Mrs. Forrester is satisfied, I shall never regret my decision." For the first time his tired, swollen eyes sought his wife's.

"I never question your decisions in business, Mr. Forrester. I know nothing about such things."

The captain put down the cigar he had taken, but not lighted, rose with an effort, and walked over to the baywindow, where he stood gazing out over his meadows.

"The place looks very nice, Maidy," he said presently. "I see you 've watered the roses. They need it, this weather. Now, if you 'll excuse me, I'll lie down for a while. I did not sleep well on the train. Neil and the judge will stay for lunch." He opened the door into Mrs. Forrester's room and closed it behind him.

Judge Pomeroy began to explain to Mrs. Forrester the situation they had faced in Denver. The bank, about which Mrs. Forrester knew nothing but its name, was one that paid good interest on small deposits. The depositors were wage-earners; railroad employees, mechanics, and day laborers, many of whom had at some time worked for Captain Forrester. His was the only well known name among the bank officers; it was the name that promised security and fair treatment to his old workmen and their friends. The other directors were promising young business men, with many irons in the fire. But, the judge said with evident chagrin, they had refused to come up to the scratch and pay their losses like gentlemen. They claimed that the bank was insolvent not through unwise invest

ments or mismanagement, but because of a nation-wide financial panic, a shrinking in values that no one could have foreseen. They argued that the fair thing was to share the loss with the depositors; to pay them fifty cents on the dollar, giving long-time notes for twenty-five per cent., settling on a basis of seventy-five per cent.

Captain Forrester had stood firm that not one of the depositors should lose a dollar. The promising young business men had listened to him respectfully, but finally told him they would settle only on their own terms; any additional refunding must be his affair. He sent to the vault for his private steel box, opened it in their presence, and sorted the contents on the table. The government bonds he turned in at once. Judge Pomeroy was sent out to sell the mining stock and other securities in the open market.

At this part of his narrative the judge rose and began to pace the floor, twisting the seals on his watchchain.

"With five of the directors backing down, he had either to lose his name or save it. The depositors had put their savings into that bank because Captain Forrester was president. To those men with no capital but their back and their two hands, his name meant safety. As he tried to explain to the directors, those deposits were above price; money saved to buy a home or to take care of a man in sickness or to send a boy to school. And those young men, bright fellows, well thought of in the community, sat there and looked down their noses and let your husband strip himself down to pledging his life insurance! There

was a crowd in the street outside the bank all day, every day; Poles and Swedes and Mexicans, looking scared to death. A lot of them could n't speak English; seemed like the only English word they knew was 'Forrester.' As we went in and out we 'd hear the Mexicans saying, 'Forrester, Forrester.' It was a torment for me, on your account, ma'am, to see the captain strip himself; but, 'pon my honor, I could n't forbid him. As for those white-livered rascals that sat there," the judge stopped before Mrs. Forrester and ruffled his bushy white hair with both hands,-"my God, madam, I think I 've lived too long! In my day the difference between a business man and a scoundrel was bigger than the difference between a white man and a nigger. I was n't the right one to go out there as the captain's counsel. One of these smooth members of the bar, like Ivy Peters is getting ready to be, might have saved something for you out of the wreck, but I could n't use my influence with your husband. To that crowd outside the bank doors his name meant a hundred cents on the dollar, and they got it! I'm proud of him, maʼam, proud of his acquaintance!”

When their hostess went out to see about lunch, Judge Pomeroy turned to his nephew.

"Son, I 'm glad you want to be an architect. I can't see any honorable career for a lawyer in this new business world that 's coming up. Leave the law to boys like Ivy Peters, and get into some clean profession. I was n't the right man to go with Forrester." He shook his head sadly.

"Will they really be poor?"

"They'll be pinched. It 's as he said, they 've nothing left but this place."

Mrs. Forrester returned, and went to waken her husband for lunch. When she opened the door into her room, they heard stertorous breathing, and she called to them to come quickly. The captain was stretched upon his iron bed in the antechamber, and Mrs. Forrester was struggling to lift his head.

"Quick, Neil!" she panted. must get pillows under him. those from my bed."

"We Bring

Neil gently pushed her away. Sweat poured from his face as he got his strength under the captain's shoulders. It was like lifting a wounded elephant. Judge Pomeroy hurried back to the sitting-room and telephoned Dr. Dennison that Captain Forrester had had a stroke.

A stroke could not finish a man like Daniel Forrester. He was kept in his bed for three weeks, and Neil helped Mrs. Forrester and Ben Keezer take care of him. Although he was at the house so much during that time, he never saw Mrs. Forrester alone, scarcely saw her at all, indeed. With so much to attend to, she became abstracted, almost impersonal. There were many letters of solicitous inquiry

to answer, gifts of fruit and wine and flowers to be acknowledged, from friends scattered all the way from the Missouri to the mountains. When she was not in Captain Forrester's room or in the kitchen preparing special foods for him, she was at her desk.

One morning while she was seated there, a distinguished visitor arrived. Neil, waiting by the door for the letters he was to take to the post, saw a large, red-whiskered man in a rumpled pongee suit and a white panama hat come puffing up the hill: Cyrus Dalzell, president of the Colorado & Utah, who had come over in his private car to inquire in person for the health of his old friend. Neil warned Mrs. Forrester, and she went to meet the visitor just as he came up the steps, wiping his face with a red silk bandana.

He took both the lady's hands and exclaimed in a deep, mellow voice:

"Here she is, looking as fresh as a bride! May I claim an old privilege?" He bent his head and kissed her. "I won't be in your way, Marian," he said as they came into the house, "but I had to see for myself how he does, and how you do."

Neil was introduced, and Mr. Dalzell shook his hand heartily. He had a heavy, courtly carriage, and moved about the parlor clumsily and softly, like a brown bear. Mrs. Forrester straightened his flowing yellow tie and pulled down the back of his wrinkled coat.

"It's easy to see that Kitty was n't with you this morning when you dressed." She laughed.

"Thank you, thank you, my dear. I've got a green porter down there, and he does n't seem to realize the extent of his duties. No. Kitty

wanted to come, but we have two giddy nieces out from Portsmouth visiting us, and she felt she could n't. I just had my car hitched on to the tail of the Burlington flyer and came myself. Now tell me about Daniel. Was it a stroke?"

Mrs. Forrester sat down on the sofa beside him and told him about her husband's illness, while he interrupted with sympathetic questions and comments, taking her hand between his large, soft palms and patting it affectionately.

"And now I can go home and tell Kitty that he will soon be as good as ever, and that you look like you were going to lead the ball to-night. You whisper to Daniel that I've got a couple cases of port down in my car that will build him up faster than anything the doctors give him. And I've brought along a dozen sherry for a lady that knows a thing or two about wines. And next winter you are both coming out to stay with us at the Springs for a change of air."

Mrs. Forrester shook her head, gently.

"Oh, that, I'm afraid, is a pretty dream. But we 'll dream it, anyway!" Everything about her had brightened since Cyrus Dalzell came up the hill. Even the long garnet ear-rings that hung beside her cheeks seemed to flash with a deeper color, Neil thought. She was a different woman from the one who sat there writing half an hour ago. Her fingers, as they played on the sleeve of the pongee coat, were as light and fluttery as butterfly wings. "No dream at all, my dear. Kitty has arranged everything. You know how quickly she thinks things out. I am to come for you in my car. We'll get my old porter Jim as a valet

for Daniel, and you can just play around and put fresh life into us all. We saw last winter that we could n't do anything without our Lady Forrester. Nothing came off right without her. If we had a party, we sat down afterward and wondered what in hell we 'd had it for. Oh, no, we can't manage without you!"

Tears flashed into her eyes.

"That 's very dear of you. It's sweet to be remembered when one is away." In her voice there was the heartbreaking sweetness one sometimes hears in lovely, gentle old songs.

After three weeks the captain was up and around again. He dragged his left foot, and his left arm was uncertain. Though he recovered his speech, it was thick and clouded; some words he could not pronounce distinctly: slid over them, dropped out a syllable. Therefore he avoided talking even more than was his habit. The doctor said that unless another brain lesion occurred, he might get on comfortably for some time yet.

In August Neil was to go to Boston to begin coaching for his entrance examinations at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he meant to study architecture. He put off bidding the Forresters good-by until the very day before he left. His last call was different from any he had ever made there before. Already they began to treat him like a young man. He sat rather stiffly in that parlor where he had been so much at home. The captain was in his big chair in the bay-window, in the full glow of the afternoon sun, saying little, but very friendly. Mrs. Forrester, on the sofa in the shadowy corner of the room, talked about Neil's plans and his journey.