into his work, and the
Ridge and its people and the prayers of his mother became to him only
as a dream that comes in the night and fades in the day. Even the
shabby figure of Colonel Martin Culpepper, with his market basket on
his arm, waving a good-by as the Barclay private car pulled out of the
Sycamore Ridge depot, disappeared from his mind, though that pathetic
image haunted him for nearly a hundred miles as he rode, and he could
not shake it off until he immersed himself in the roar of the great
City. He could not know that he had any remote relation with the worry
in the old man's eyes. Nor did Martin Culpepper try to shift his load
to John. He knew where the blame was, and he tried to take it like a
man. But in reckoning the colonel's account, may not something be
charged off to the account of John Barclay, who to save himself and
accomplish the Larger Good--which meant the establishment of his own
fortunes--sent Adrian Brownwell in those days in the seventies with
the money to the colonel, not so much to help the colonel as to save
John Barclay? The Larger Good is a slow, vicious, accumulative poison,
and heaven only knows when it will come out and kill.

It was a week after the pipe-organ recital at the church, when Mary
Barclay, doing her day's marketing, ran into Colonel Culpepper
standing rather forlornly in front of McHurdie's shop. He bowed to her
with elaborate graciousness, and she stopped to speak with him. In a
moment he was saying, "So you have not heard, are unaware, entirely
ignorant, in point of fact, of my misfortunes?" She assented, and the
colonel went on: "Well, madam, the end has come; I have played out my
hand; I have strutted my hour upon the stage, and now I go off. Old
Mart Culpepper, my dear, is no longer the leading citizen, nor our
distinguished capitalist, not even the hustling real estate agent of
former days--just plain old Mart Culpepper, I may say. He who was, is
now a has-been,--just an old man without a business." He saw that she
did not appreciate what had happened, and he smiled gently and said:
"Closed up, my dear madam. A receiver was appointed a few minutes ago
for the Culpepper Mortgage Company, and I gave him the key.
Failure--failure--" he repeated the word bitterly--"failure is
written over the door of this life."

Mary Barclay grasped his big fat hand and pressed it, and shook her
head. Something in her throat choked her, and she could not speak at
first. The two st