vestment
for years."

"A dollar! No, nor perhaps a penny! We are not measuring our profits
in money!"

"And your investment--let's see," he mused, trying to draw her out.
"You've put into this thing a couple of hundred thousand, eh?"

She smiled. "I'll tell you," she said, "because money is the only
measure you have for estimating the worth of our project. Mr. Hitt has
put more than that amount already into the Express."

"Well! well! Quite a little for you people to lose, eh?"

"You will have to change your tone if you remain here, Mr. Ames," she
answered quietly. "We talk only prosperity in this office."

"Prosperity! In the face of overwhelming debts! That's good!" he
laughed.

She looked at him closely for a moment. "Debts?" she said in a low
voice. "_You_ speak of debts? You who owe your fellow-men what you can
never, never repay? Why, Mr. Ames, there is no man in this whole wide
world, I think, who is so terribly, hopelessly in debt as you!"

"I? My dear girl! Why, I don't owe a dollar to any man!"

"No?" she queried, bending a little closer to him. "You do not owe
Madam Beaubien the money you are daily filching from her? You do not
owe poor Mr. Gannette the money and freedom of which you robbed him?
You do not owe anything to the thousands of miners and mill hands who
have given, and still give, their lives for you? You do not owe for
the life which you took from Mrs. Hawley-Crowles? You do not owe for
the souls which you have debauched in your black career? For the human
wreckage which lies strewn in your wake? You do not owe Mr. Haynerd
for the Social Era which you stole from him?"

Ames remained rigid and quiet while the girl spoke. And when she had
finished, and they sat looking squarely into each other's eyes, the
silence was like that which comes between the sharp click of lightning
and the crash of thunder which follows. If it had been a man who thus
addressed him, Ames would have hurled him to the floor and trampled
him. As it was, he rose slowly, like a black storm-cloud mounting
above the horizon, and stood over the girl.

She looked up into his face dauntlessly and smiled. "Sit down," she
quietly said. "I've only begun. Don't threaten, please," she
continued. "It wouldn't do any good, for I am not a bit afraid of you.
Sit down."

A faint smile began to play about Ames's mouth. Then he twitched his
shoulders slightly. "I--I got up," he said, with an assumption of
nonchalance, "to--to rea