eyes first widening in bewilderment, then blazing into an
unspeakable fury--and scorn. How could he have done such a thing--he the
martinet of business caution? It seemed to himself inconceivable and not
to be accounted for merely by the explanation of a new husband's
abstraction.

He remembered now. These particular papers had formerly been kept in a
separate box--safe from confusion with others. In sorting things out
prior to his wedding trip he had made several changes of
arrangement--and had until this moment forgotten that change.

A sudden sweat broke out on his forehead and, snatching the whip from
its stalk on the dashboard, he belabored his aged and infirm mare into
a rickety effort at speed.

Ira Forman, standing by the green doors of his barn, watched the rich
man go by with this unaccustomed excitement. Ira's small resources had,
on occasion, felt the weight of Eben's hand and as he gazed, his
observation was made without friendliness. "In a manner of speakin' Eben
'pears to be busier than the devil in a gale of wind. I wonder who he
cal'lates to rob at the present time."

Eben had occasion to be busy. He had often told himself that it was the
part of prudence to burn those documents, yet some jackdaw quality of
setting store by weird trinkets had always saved them from destruction.
In a fashion they were trophies of triumph. With indefinable certainty
he felt that some time--somehow--their possession would be of
incalculable value. They constituted his birth certificate in this new
life.

While a frenzy of haste drove him, the realization of what he might find
when he arrived made him wish that he dared postpone the issue, and the
hand which fitted a key to his own front door trembled with trepidation.
Once he had seen his wife's face he would know. Her anger would not burn
slowly, in such a case, but in the conflagration of tinder laid to
powder. Yet when he stole quietly to the study door and looked in,
anxiety made his breath uneven. She was sitting there, within arm's
length of the table--which, thank God, seemed to the casual glance, just
as he had left it,--but in her fingers she held what appeared to be a
letter, and as he watched, unobserved, she crumpled it and tossed it
into the flames that cast bright flecks of color on her cheeks. Her face
looked somewhat miserable and distraught--but that hardly comported with
what should be expected had she learned the truth--unless possibly it
was the