doctors are right. They all agree
that me heart's overworked up here." His dejection was really due to
Bertha's moody silence.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Do they think you may live safely at
sea-level?"

"They say so. Me own feeling is that the climate is not to blame. 'Tis
age. I'm like a hollow-hearted tree, ready to fall with the first puff
of ill wind. I've never been a man since that devil blew me to pieces."

She put her right hand upon his arm. "Is it not a shame that you and I
should stand in the way of two fine, wholesome, young people--shutting
them off from happiness?"

He turned a glance upon her quite too penetrating to be borne. "You
mane--what?--who?"

"I mean Bertha."

"Do I stand in the way of her happiness?"

She met the question squarely, speaking with tense, drawn lips. "Yes,
just as I do in Ben's way. We're neither of us fit to be married, and
they are."

His eyes wavered. "That's true. I'm no mate for her--and yet I think
I've made her happy." He was silent a moment, then faltered: "Ye lay
your hand on a sore spot--ye do, surely. 'Tis true I've tried to have
the money make up for me other shortcomings." He ended almost humbly.

"Money can do much, but it can't buy happiness."

"That's true, too--but 'tis able to buy comfort, and that's next door to
happiness in the long-run, I'm thinkin'. But I'm watchin' her, and I
don't intend to stand in her way, miss. I've told her so, and when the
conquering lad comes along I mane to get out of the road."

"Have you said that?" Her face reached towards his with sudden
intensity, and a snakelike brilliancy glittered in her eyes. "You've
gone as far as that?"

"I have."

"Then act, for the time has come to make your promise good. Bertha
already loves a man as every girl should love who marries happily, and
the gossips are even now busy with her name."

He was hard hit, and slowly said: "I don't believe it! Who is the
man?--tell me!" He demanded this in a tone that was not to be denied.

She delivered her sentence quickly. "She loves Ben. Haven't you seen it?
She has loved him from their first meeting. I have known it for a long
time, almost from the first; now everybody knows it, and the society
reporters are beginning their innuendoes. The next thing will be her
picture in the sensational press, and a scandal. Don't you know this? It
must not happen! We must make way for them--you and I. We cumber the
path."

He sank back into his seat and