ern people to
be bled by the Wall Street 'System,' that started Reinhart and his
dollar-fiends on the war-path. You can see from what I tell you of my
father the terrible condition he is in now. At night, when I get to
thinking of him, hoping against hope, with no one to help him, no one with
whom he can talk over his affairs, when I think of his nobleness in
devoting his time to mother and by sheer will-power concealing from her
his awful suffering, it nearly drives me mad."

"Miss Sands, why will you not let me lend you the money necessary to tide
your father over for a while?" I asked.

"You are so good, Mr. Randolph, but you don't quite understand my father
in spite of what I have said. He would not relieve his suffering at the
expense of another, not if it were a hundred times more acute. You cannot
understand the old-fashioned, deep-rooted pride of the Sands."

"But can you not, at least temporarily, disguise from him just how you
have arranged the relief?"

Her big blue eyes stared at me in bewilderment.

"Mr. Randolph, I could not deceive father. I could not tell him a lie even
to save his life. It would be impossible. My father abhors a lie. He
believes a man or woman who would lie the lowest of the low things on
earth. When I go back to my father he will say, 'Tell me what you have
done.' I can just see him now, standing between the big white pillars at
the end of the driveway. I can hear him say calmly, 'Beulah, my daughter,
welcome. Your mother is waiting for you in her room. Do not lose a moment
getting to her.' Afterward he'll take me over the plantation to show me
all the familiar things, and not one word will he allow me to say about
our affairs until dinner is over, until the neighbours have left, for no
Sands returns from long absence without a fitting home welcome. When I
have said good night to mother and sister and he has drawn up my rocker in
front of his big chair in the library alcove and I've lighted his cigar
for him, he will look me in the eye and say, 'Daughter, tell me all you
have done.' I would no more think of holding anything back than I would of
stabbing him to the heart. No, Mr. Randolph, there is no possibility of
relief except in fairly using that $30,000, and fairly winning back what
Wall Street has stolen from father. Even that will cause both of us many
twinges of conscience, and anything more is impossible. If this cannot be
done, father must, all of us must, pay the penalty