s; and
when he thought of replying to them--or leaving them unanswered--his
brow went moist and his heart sick. What should he do? What could he
do?

When they returned to the hotel, the judge was in a fever of excitement.

"I tell you, Florian," said he, "I believe the professor is right about
this. It seems that there are precedents, you know--cases on all-fours
with yours. When I went to the telephone, up there, I called up Stacy
and Stacy's and asked 'em to get me Dun's and Bradstreet's report on
your Bellevale business. It ought to be up here pretty soon. There
may be something down there worth looking after, and needing attention."

"Perhaps," groaned Amidon. "Do you know that I'm engaged----"

"One of the things I referred to," said the judge.

"--to a lady, down there, whom I shouldn't know if I were to meet her
out in the hall? If I go back to Hazelhurst, she is put under a cloud
as a deserted woman--to say nothing of her feelings. And if I go back
to Bellevale--my God, Judge, how can I go back, and take my place in a
society where every one knows me, and I know nobody; and be a lover to
a girl who may be--anything, you know; but who has the highest sort of
claims on me, and a nature, I'm sure, capable of the keenest suffering
or pleasure--how can I?"

"Message, sir, from Stacy and Stacy," said a messenger boy at the door.

Judge Blodgett tore open the envelope, and read the telegraphic reports.

"M--m--m----Y--e--es," said he. "It'll take diplomacy, Florian,
diplomacy. But, if these reports are to be trusted, and I guess they
are, you've got about ten times as much at Bellevale as you have at
Hazelhurst. And, as you say, the lady has claims. As an honorable
man--an engaged man, who has received the plighted troth of a pure
young heart--and a good financier, this Bellevale life demands
resumption at your hands. Prepare, fellow citizen, to meet the
difficulties of the situation."

VIII

POISING FOR THE PLUNGE

Yea, all her words are sweet and fair,
And so, mayhap, is she;
But words are naught but molded air,
And air and molds are free.
Belike, the youth in charmed hall
Some fardels sore might miss,
Scanning his Beauty's household all,
Or ere he gave the kiss!
--_The Knyghte's Discourse to his Page_.

Now it happened that at Bellevale, the young woman whom we--with the
sweet familiarity of art--have had the joy to know as Elizabeth, moved