it when he
came, passing her with a surly nod.

"So your master's not forgotten you," he snarled, while the blind old
hen cocked her one eye up at him.

Pike, the manager, had brought in some bills.

"Who's its master?" he said, curiously, stopping by the door.

"Holmes,--he feeds it every morning."

The Doctor drawled out the words with a covert sneer, watching the
quiet, cold face bending over the desk, meantime.

Pike laughed.

"Bah! it's the first thing he ever fed, then, besides himself. Chickens
must lie nearer his heart than men."

Knowles scowled at him; he had no fancy for Pike's scurrilous gossip.

The quiet face was unmoved. When he heard the manager's foot on the
ladder without, he tested it again. He had a vague suspicion which he
was determined to verify.

"Holmes," he said, carelessly, "has an affinity for animals. No wonder.
Adam must have been some such man as he, when the Lord gave him
'dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air.'"

The hand paused courteously a moment, then resumed its quick, cool
movement over the page. He was not baffled.

"If there were such a reality as mastership, that man was born to rule.
Pike will find him harder to cheat than me, when he takes possession
here."

She looked up now, attentive.

"He came here to take my place in the mills,--buy me out,--articles will
be signed in a day or two. I know what you think,--no,--not worth
a dollar. Only brains and a soul, and he's sold them at a high
figure,--threw his heart in,--the purchaser being a lady. It was light,
I fancy,--starved out, long ago."

The old man's words were spurted out in the bitterness of scorn. The
girl listened with a cool incredulity in her eyes, and went back to her
work.

"Miss Herne is the lady,--my partner's daughter. Herne and Holmes
they'll call the firm. He is here every day, counting future profit."

Nothing could be read on the cold still face; so he left her, cursing,
as he went, men who put themselves up at auction,--worse than Orleans
slaves. Margaret laughed to herself at his passion; as for the story he
hinted, it was absurd. She forgot it in a moment.

Two or three gentlemen down in one of the counting-rooms, just then,
looked at the story from another point of view. They were talking low,
out of hearing from the clerks.

"It's a good thing for Holmes," said one, a burly, farmer-like man, who
was choosing specimens of wool.

"Cheap. And long credi