ptroller's office who had
been dispatched from Washington to observe the metamorphosis of the
First National into the Montgomery National,--Phil, with an
embarrassment that was new to her relations with her father, asked
diffidently,--

"Shall I say anything to mamma--I mean about the money?"

This was not at all what she had meant to say. She had hoped that he
would send some message to her mother. It was incredible that the wires
should be so utterly broken between them as to make all communication
impossible. They were both so much to her liking; in her own heart
admiration and love enfolded them both so completely that her spirit
chafed at the thought of standing first with one and then with the other
on the respective sides of the barricade that had risen between them.
Her father replied brusquely:--

"No; that's all, I believe, Phil."

As they walked toward the court-house, Lois passed on the opposite
sidewalk. It is not against Montgomery conventions to nod to friends
across Main Street or even to pause and converse across that
thoroughfare if one is so disposed. Phil nodded to her mother. She was
unable to tell whether her father was conscious that his former wife
was so near; he lifted his hat absently, seeing that Phil was speaking
to some one.

"By the way, Phil, have you been in the house lately--the old place, I
mean? Amzi's carpenter tells me the wind has torn off the water-spouts
and that the veranda posts have rotted badly."

He had so rarely mentioned the long-abandoned house that she was
startled. He did not care! This was the most conclusive proof possible
that he no longer cared; and the thought of it did not make her happy.
Clearly Love was not, after all, a limitless dominion, without other
bounds than those set by the farthest stars, but a narrow, dark, and
unstable realm. That these two should dwell in the same town, walk the
same street, at the same hour, without any desire to see and speak to
each other, was the strangest of phenomena.

"Drop in to-morrow and have luncheon with me at the hotel. I want to see
all of you I can while I'm here," he remarked when they reached the
court-house.

"Very well, daddy."

That evening, after he had eaten the hotel supper with a printed brief
for company, Kirkwood went to the Bartletts', but no one answered his
summons and he turned away disappointed. Thinking they were probably at
some neighbor's house he decided to walk about and return later.