sentimental situation developing under his eyes. Lucille, whose delicate, rose-leaf beauty was a direct inheritance from her father, was more animated than David had ever seen her, and it was doubly hard to realize that the softly lighted eyes, lifted shyly now and again in Oswald’s direction, were sightless. And as for the clean-cut, eager-faced young attorney,[34] there was small effort at concealment on his part.

[34]

David Vallory left the house after dinner with a heavy heart. He had known Oswald all his life, and liked him. He was well assured that the young lawyer would stand by and be a very tower of strength to the family in the storm which was about to burst. But the outcome of it all would be a swift conflagration in the sentimental field, and a heart-breaking awakening for the blind sister, who was obviously in love with Oswald without at all realizing it. On the half-mile walk to the St. Nicholas David Vallory told himself in many and sternly emphatic repetitions that something must be done to avert the triple-headed calamity; though what the “something” should be was entirely beyond his powers of imagination.

It was past eight o’clock when he reached the town’s one hotel and found a quiet corner in the small office-lobby where he could smoke and wait for the two who were bringing up the boyhood arrears in a private room above-stairs. When the waiting interval ended, it was only the burly guest-host who appeared, coming down from the private-dining-room suite alone. Catching sight of David, he crossed the lobby, cast his big body[35] heavily into a chair, and lighted a cigar, the end of which was already chewed into shapelessness.

[35]

“You have sent Dad home?” inquired the son, after he had delivered the telegram assuring one Eben Grillage of a reserved space in the Chicago sleeping-car.

“No!”—disgustedly. “Some crazy farmer broke in on us a few minutes ago and insisted on taking your father over to the bank. Said he had an option on a piece of land, and was obliged to get his money to-night to make good on it.”

David winced. He knew perfectly well that the excuse given had been only an excuse; that the intruding farmer was merely one of the badly frightened depositors in the Middleboro Security who was afraid to wait for another day. He was wondering how much or how little his father had told Grillage of the threatened disaster when the big man went on.

“There is something the 

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