e; it's the price of my soul, and I need it now.
Those people only want their money--that is all."

"Yes," he replied, "I suppose that is all they want." He drummed on
his desk a moment and then asked, "Does your father know how much it
is?"

"Yes," she answered, "I found in his desk at the house last night a
paper on which he had been figuring--poor father--all the night
before. All the night before--" she repeated, and then sobbed, "Poor
father--all the night before. He knew it was coming. He knew the
detective was here. He told me to-day that the sum he had there was
correct. It is sixteen thousand five hundred and forty-three dollars.
But he doesn't know I'm here, John. I told him I had some money of my
own--some I'd had for years--and I have--oh, I have, John
Barclay--I have." She looked up at him with the pallid face stained
with fresh tears and asked, "I have--I have--haven't I, John,
haven't I?"

He put his elbows on the desk and sank his head in his hands and
sighed, "Yes, Molly--yes, you have."

They sat in silence until the roar of the waters and the murmur of the
wheels about them came into the room. Then the woman rose to go.
"Well, John," she said, "I suppose one shouldn't thank a person for
giving her her own--but I do, John. Oh, it's like blood money to
me--but father--I can't let father suffer."

She walked to the door, he stepped to unlatch it, and she passed out
without saying good-by. When she was gone, he slipped the latch, and
sat down with his hands gripping the table before him. As he sat
there, he looked across the years and saw some of the havoc he had
made. There was no shirking anything that he saw. A footfall passing
the door made him start as if he feared to be caught in some guilty
act. Yet he knew the door was locked. He choked a little groan behind
his teeth, and then reached for the top of his desk, pulled down the
rolling cover, and limped quickly out of the room--as though he were
leaving a corpse. What he saw was the ghost of the Larger Good,
mocking him through the veil of the past, and asking him such
questions as only a man's soul may hear and not resent.

He walked over the mill for a time, and then calling his stenographers
from their room, dictated them blind and himself dumb with details of
a deal he was putting through to get control of the cracker companies
of the country. When he finished, the sunset was glaring across the
water through the window in front of him, a