. Everything's
changed and you're not what you used to be and something has come
between us. I don't feel any more that we're the most important things
in your life--as I used to."

He shook his head grimly. "You're all more important than ever, if you
only knew it." Manson had a faint sense of injustice. It was for them
he was wading through depths of anxiety. "You're shortly going to get
the surprise of your life," he added with a note of triumphant
conviction.

"Is it money?" she said slowly.

He nodded. "Yes, a pile of it."

"I don't want any more money, Peter, I'd sooner have you." The little
woman's voice was very pleading.

"Look here, Barbara," he exploded, "I've made nearly thirty thousand
dollars out of real estate. I got the money, you understand, but the
game was too stiff and took too much time, so I put that and what else
I could raise into stock--in Toronto. I've already made twenty
thousand more, that's fifty, and the last twenty was without any effort
or time on my part. I've only got to leave it alone for another year,
and I'll pull out with an even hundred thousand and retire and devote
the rest of my time to you and the children. Isn't that fair enough?"

"Do you say that you have already made fifty thousand dollars?" She
was staring at him with startled and incredulous eyes. The sum
staggered her.

"Yes," he chuckled contentedly.

She put her arms around his neck. "Then, Peter," she implored, "stop
now. It's enough--it's marvelously more than I ever dreamed of. Oh!
we can be so happy."

He shook his head. "I've set my mind on the even hundred. Can't you
stand another year of it?"

"I can, but not you," she implored. "You don't know how you've
changed. Peter, I beg you."

"I've got to leave that fifty where it is to make the next," he said
with slow stubbornness. "I'll be the only man in St. Marys who was
wise enough to make hay when the sun shone. You needn't be frightened
for me."

"I'm frightened for myself," she answered shakily. "Won't you do what
I ask? Sometimes," she ventured with delicate courage, "sometimes a
woman can see furthest--though she doesn't know why."

"A year from to-day you'll thank me for sticking it out," came back
Manson stolidly.

"And if it shouldn't turn out as you expect," she replied with a look
that was at once sudden and profound, "you'll remember that I begged
and you refused."

The door closed noiselessly behind her and