d suddenly, though he never knew why,
and there, just outside the rim of light from his lampshade, trembled
the image of Ellen Culpepper with her red and black checked flannel
dress at her shoe tops and his rubber button ring upon her finger. She
smiled at him sweetly for a moment and shook her head sadly, and her
curls fluttered upon her shoulders, and then she seemed to fade into
the general's desk by the opposite wall. John was pallid and
frightened for a moment; then as he looked at the great pile of
letters before him he realized how tired and worn he was. But the face
and the eyes haunted him and brought back old memories, and that night
he and Jane and Molly Culpepper went to Hendricks', and he played the
piano for an hour in the firelight, and dreamed old dreams. And his
hands fell into the chords of a song that he sang as a boy, and Molly
came from the fire and stood beside him while they hummed the words in
a low duet:--

"Let me believe that you love as you loved
Long, long ago--long ago."

But when he went out into the drizzling night, and he and Jane left
Molly at home, he stepped into the whirling yellow world of gold and
grain, and drafts and checks, and leases and mortgages, and Heaven
knows what of plots and schemes and plans. So he did not heed Jane
when she said, "Poor--poor little Molly," but replied as he latched
the Culpepper gate, "Oh, Molly'll be all right. You can't mix business
and pleasure, you know. Bob must stay."

And when Molly went into the house, she found her mother waiting for
her. The colonel's courage had failed him. The mother took her
daughter's hand, and the two walked up the broad stairs together.

"Molly," said the mother, as the girl listlessly went about her
preparations for bed, "don't grieve so about Bob. Father and John need
him there. It's business, you know."

The daughter answered, "Yes, I know, but I'm so lonesome--so
lonesome." Then she sobbed, "You know he hasn't written for a whole
week, and I'm afraid--afraid!"

When the paroxysm had passed, the mother said: "You know, my dear,
they need him there a little longer, and he wants to come back. Your
father told me that John sent word to-day that you must not let him
come." The girl's face looked the pain that struck her heart, and she
did not answer. "Molly dear," began the mother again, "can't you write
to Bob to-morrow and urge him to stay--for me? For all of us? It is
so much to us now--for a little w