s, but had hoped to overcome the anticipated objections; he had
failed in this, but it was only a check, not defeat.

He smiled complacently over his power of self-control in having allowed
no hint of his absorbing passion to escape him.

Acceptance of this money by Allis, the money which was the outcome of
an isolated generous thought, would have given him a real advantage.
To have spoken, though never so briefly of his hopes for proprietary
rights, would have accentuated the girl's sensitive alarm. He was too
perfect a tactician to indulge in such poor sword play; he had really
left the question open. A little thought, influenced by the desperate
condition of Porter's fortunes, might make Allis amenable to what was
evidently her best interest, should she be approached from a different
quarter.

Crane had made the first move, and met checkmate; the second move would
be through Allis's mother; he determined upon that course. All his old
cunning must have surely departed from him if he could not win this
girl. Fate was backing him up most strenuously. Diablo had been cast
into his hands--thrust upon him by the good fortune that so steadily
befriended him. He was not in the habit of attributing unlooked-for
success to Providence; he rarely went beyond fate for a deity.
Unmistakably then it was fate that had cast the horoscope of his and
Allis's life together. Never mind what means he might use to carry out
this decree; once accomplished, he would more than make amends to the
girl.

He drew most delightful pictures of the Utopian existence his wealth
would make possible for Allis. For the father he would provide a racing
stable that would bring profit in place of disaster. Crane smiled
somewhat grimly as he thought that under those changed circumstances
even Allis's mother might be brought to condone her husband's
continuance in the nefarious profession. If for no other reason than
the great success he had made in the Brooklyn Handicap with Diablo,
his spirits were that evening impossible of the reception of even a
foreshadowing of failure. A suppressed exhilaration rose-tinted every
projected scheme. He would win Allis, and he would win the Brooklyn
Derby with his good colt, The Dutchman.

He went to sleep in this happy glamour of assured success, and, by the
inevitable contrariness of things, dreamed that he was falling over a
steep precipice on The Dutchman's back, and that at the bottom Mortimer
and Allis were ho