ed. "I happen to be sure
of that, because I'm acting for two creditors. A receiver has been
appointed. Lewis himself is in deep. He is at present at large on
bail, charged with unlawful conversion of moneys entrusted to his
care. You have a case, clear enough, but----" he threw out his hands
with a suggestive motion--"they're bankrupt."

"I see," Hollister muttered. "I appear to be out of luck, then."

"Unfortunately, yes," MacFarlan continued. "You could get a judgment
against them. But it would be worthless. Simply throwing good money
after bad. There will be half a dozen other judgments recorded against
them, a dozen other claims put in, before you could get action. Of
course, I could proceed on your behalf and let you in for a lot of
costs, but I would rather not earn my fees in that manner. I'm
satisfied there won't be more than a few cents on the dollar for
anybody."

"That seems final enough," Hollister said. "I am obliged to you, Mr.
MacFarlan."

He went out again into a street filled with people hurrying about
their affairs in the spring sunshine. So much for that, he reflected,
not without a touch of contemptuous anger against Lewis. He understood
now the man's troubled absorption. With the penitentiary staring him
in the face--

At any rate the property was not involved. Whatever its worth, it was
his, and the only asset at his command. He would have to make the best
of it, dispose of it for what he could get. Meantime, Doris Cleveland
began to loom bigger in his mind than this timber limit. He suffered a
vast impatience until he should see her again. He had touches, this
morning, of incredulous astonishment before the fact that he could
love and be loved. He felt once or twice that this promise of
happiness would prove an illusion, something he had dreamed, if he did
not soon verify it by sight and speech.

He was to call for her at two o'clock. They had planned to take a
Fourth Avenue car to the end of the line and walk thence past the
Jericho Club grounds and out a driveway that left the houses of the
town far behind, a road that went winding along the gentle curve of a
shore line where the Gulf swell whispered or thundered, according to
the weather.

Doris was a good walker. On the level road she kept step without
faltering or effort, holding Hollister's hand, not because she needed
it for guidance, but because it was her pleasure.

They came under a high wooded slope.

"Listen to the birds,"