again he drew
her to him and implanted upon her brow and eyes and lips his kisses. I
could not stand the scene any longer. I started to the corridor-door, and
then, as though for the first time either had known I was within hearing,
they turned and stared at me. At last Bob gave a long deep sigh, then one
of those reluctant laughs of happiness yet wet with sobs.

"Well, Jim, dear old Jim, where did you come from? Like all
eavesdroppers, you have heard no good of yourself. Own up, Jim, you did
not hear a word good or bad about yourself, for it is just coming back to
me that we have been selfish, that we have left you entirely out of our
business conference."

We all laughed, and Beulah Sands, with her face a bloom of burning
blushes, said: "Mr. Randolph, we have not settled what it is best to do
about father's affairs."

After a little we did begin to talk business, and finally agreed that
Beulah should write her father, wording her letter as carefully as
possible, to avoid all direct statements, but showing him that she had
made but little headway on the work she had come North to accomplish. Bob
was a changed being now; so, too, was Beulah Sands. Both discussed their
hopes and fears with a frankness in strange contrast to their former
manner. But there was one point on which Bob showed he was holding back. I
finally put it to him bluntly: "Bob, are you working out anything that
looks like real relief for Miss Sands and her father?"

"I don't know how to answer you, Jim. I can only say I have some ideas,
radical ones perhaps, but--well, I am thinking along certain lines."

I saw he was not yet willing to take us into his confidence. We parted,
Bob going along in the cab with Miss Sands.

Two days afterward she sent for us both as soon as we got to the office.

"I have this telegram from father--it makes me uneasy: 'Mailed to-day
important letter. Answer as soon as you receive.'"

The following afternoon the letter came. It showed Judge Sands in a very
nervous, uneasy state. He said he had been living a life of daily terror,
as some of his friends, for whose estates he was trustee, had been
receiving anonymous letters, advising them to look into the judge's trust
affairs; that the Reinhart crowd had been using renewed pressure to make
him let go all his Seaboard stock, which they wanted to secure at the low
prices to which they had depressed it, in order that they might reorganise
and carry out the scheme they h