into the drive to Ringwood House.

"We are home now," she added, "and I want to say again that I'll never
forget your kind promise. I know you will not repent of your goodness."

Mrs. Porter saw Allis and Crane together in the buggy; it pleased the
good woman vastly. Allis's success with Lauzanne had taken a load from
her spirits. She was not mercenary, but there had been so much at stake.
Now in one day Providence had averted disaster, and she had awakened
from a terrible nightmare of debt. The sunshine of success had warmed
her husband's being into hopeful activity, a brightness was over his
spirits that had not been there for months. It was like an augury of
completed desire that Crane should come the day of their good fortune
with Allis. If she would but marry him there would be little left to
worry about. So it was that Crane, perplexed by his recent love check,
and Allis, mired in gloom over her hero's misfortune, stepped into a
radiancy of exotic cheerfulness.

The girl bravely sought to shake off her gloom, chiding her heavy
heart for its unfilial lack of response. Crane, accustomed to mental
athletics, tutored his mind into a seeming exuberance, and playfully
alluded to his own defeat at the hands of Allis and the erratic
Lausanne. There was no word of the bank episode, nothing but a paean of
victory.

Crane's statement to Allis that he was going out to Ringwood to see
her father was only an excuse. He soon took his departure, a stableboy
driving him back to the village. There he had a talk with the cashier.
Mortimer was to be asked to resign his position as soon as his place in
the bank could be filled. No further prosecution was to be taken against
him unless Crane decided upon such a course, "In the meantime you can
investigate cautiously," he said, "and keep quite to yourself any new
evidence that may turn up. So far as Mr. Mortimer is concerned, the
matter is quite closed."

The cashier had always considered his employer a hard man, and, in
truth, who hadn't? He could scarcely understand this leniency; he had
expected a vigorous prosecution of Mortimer; had almost dreaded its
severity. Personally he had no taste for it; still, he would feel
insecure if the suspected man, undeniably guilty, were to remain
permanently in the bank. His dismissal from the staff was a wise move,
tempered by unexpected clemency. If there were not something behind
it all--this contingency always attached itself to Crane's a