l the day, and
I go singing through life with joy at the thought that the money won't
hurt Jennie--that it can't take from her the joy that comes from
living with her lover all her life, as I have lived.' Isn't that fine,
John?" asked Mrs. Brownwell, and looking up, she saw John Barclay,
white-faced, with trembling jaw, staring in pain at the stove. Watts
had gone into the store to wait on a customer, and the woman, seeing
the man's anguish, came to him and said: "Why, John, what is it? How
have I hurt you?--I thought this would cheer you so."

The man rose heavily. His colour was coming back. "Oh, God--God," he
cried, "I needed that to-day--I needed that."

The woman looked at him, puzzled and nonplussed. "Why--why--why?"
she stammered.

"Oh, nothing," he smiled back at her bitterly, "except--" and his jaw
hardened as he snapped--"except that Neal Ward is a damned
informer--and I've sent him about his business, and Jeanette's got to
do the same."

Mollie Brownwell looked at him with hard eyes for a moment, and then
asked, "What did Neal do?"

"Well," replied Barclay, "under cross-examination, I'll admit without
incriminating myself that he gave the testimony which indicted me."

"Was it that or lie, John?" He did not reply. A silence fell, and the
woman broke it with a cry: "Oh, John Barclay, John Barclay, must your
traffic in souls reach your own flesh and blood? Haven't you enough
without selling her into Egypt, too? Haven't you enough money now?"
And without waiting for answer, Molly Brownwell turned and left him
staring into nothing, with his jaw agape.

It was noon and a band was playing up the street, and as he stood by
the stove in McHurdie's shop, he remembered vaguely that he had seen
banners flying and some "Welcome" arches across the street as he
walked through the town that morning. He realized that some lodge or
conclave or assembly was gathering in the town, and that the band was
a part of its merriment. It was playing a gay tune and came nearer and
nearer. But as he stood leaning upon his chair, with his heart
quivering and raw from its punishment, he did not notice that the band
had stopped in front of the harness shop. His mind went back wearily
to the old days, fifty years before, when as a toddling child in
dresses he used to play on that very scrap-heap outside the back door,
picking up bits of leather, and in his boyhood days, playing pranks
upon the little harness maker, and braiding his