that her granddaughter
was provided for."

"So it seems to me," rejoined Mr. Galbraith with evident relief. "I am
glad that our code of ethics agrees thus far. Now the question is,
Bob, how strong are you for the right? If honorable action meant
sacrifice, would you be ready to meet it?"

"I hope so," was the modest response.

"I know so," Mr. Galbraith declared earnestly, "and it is because I am
so sure of it that I came to you to-day. Bob, it was to you that Madam
Lee left her fortune. It was to be used for the furthering of your
dearest wish because--to quote her own words--_because I love the boy
as if he were of my own blood_."

As he listened, Robert Morton's eyes grew cloudy, and emotion choked
his utterance until he could not speak.

Apparently Mr. Galbraith either expected no reply or tactfully
interpreted his silence, for without waiting he continued:

"You can understand now, Bob, feeling toward you as we all do, that
this recent family development has not been easy for us to confront.
Delight Hathaway is a beautiful girl who possesses, no doubt, admirable
qualities. We expect to become warmly attached to her in time. But
for all her kinship she is a stranger to us while you are of our own--a
brother, friend." For the first time the kind voice faltered. "I have
even cherished a hope," it went on in a lower tone, "that perhaps in
the future a closer bond might bind you to us. Nothing in the world
would have given me greater satisfaction."

Bob suddenly felt the blood leap to his face in a crimson flood. He
gasped out an incoherent word or two, hoping to check Mr. Galbraith's
speech, but no intelligible phrases came to his tongue.

"Life is a strangely perverse game, isn't it?"' mused the capitalist.
"We build our castles, build them not alone for ourselves but for
others, and those we love shatter the structure we have so
painstakingly reared and on its ruined site make for themselves castles
of their own."

His eyes were fixed on the narrowing ribbon of sand over which the car
sped.

"I--I--have another surprise for you, Bob," he said in a lower tone,
without lifting his gaze from the reach of highway ahead. "Cynthia is
to be married."

"Cynthia!" A chaos of emotions mingled in the word.

"Her engagement has been an overwhelming shock to her mother and me,"
the elder man continued steadily, still without shifting his eyes from
the road over which he guided the car, "I don't know