will seek the heart
that is searching for you out there in the highway of heaven. I seem
to feel you now, dear soul--did the music fling your spirit free for
a second till it touched my own? I am so happy, Jeanette--even to
love you and to know that you have loved me, and must always love me
while you are you and I am I."

And now let us consider the final exhibit. It will be necessary to
turn back the action of this story a month and a half and sit with
John Barclay and his friend, former federal judge Elijah Westlake
Bemis, before the fire in the wide fireplace in the Barclay home, one
cold January night, a week after Barclay had gone free from the court
and the world had hissed him. They were talking of the judge's
business future, and the judge was saying:--

"John, how did Bob Hendricks ever straighten out that affair in the
treasurer's office in connection with the first year's taxes of the
old Wheat Company? What did he do with it finally?"

Barclay looked at the fire and then turned his searchlight eyes into
Bemis's. There was not a quiver. The man sat there without a muscle of
his parchment face moving. His eyes were squinted up, looking at the
tip of his long cigar.

"Why?" asked Barclay.

"Well," responded Bemis, impassive as an ox, "it would help me in my
business to know. Tell me."

He spoke the last two words as one in authority.

"Well," answered Barclay, "one day back in the seventies, I was
appointed to check up the treasurer's book, and I found where he had
fixed it on the county books--apparently between two administrations.
I recognized his hand; and it made the balance for the first time."

Bemis smoked awhile. "What time in the seventies?" he asked.

There was a pause. "In January, 1879."

Bemis grinned a wicked, mean little grin and said: "That settles it. I
believe I am safe in buying the waterworks."

"What are you going to do to Bob?" Barclay asked.

"Nothing, nothing--absolutely nothing, if he has any sense and drops
this municipal ownership tommyrot. Absolutely nothing."

Again the grin came over his face, and at the end of a pause Barclay
said:--

"Well, if not, what then?"

Bemis shut his eyes and crossed his gaunt legs, and began: "Think back
twenty years ago--more or less. Do you remember when I brought your
car down here for Watts McHurdie and his crowd to go to Washington in,
to the G.A.R. celebration? All right; do you remember that I came to
the