me that he can't see any hope for Alton unless
a new railroad's built, or the Government does something for the
Somasco country, and that does not seem likely."

"Please tell me all you know."

Mrs. Forel looked thoughtful. "It isn't a great deal. The land and
ranches up at Somasco are not worth very much just now, but Alton
persuaded Tom they would be presently, and he helped Alton to borrow
more dollars from everybody who would lend them. Then they built mills
and things which will not be much use to anybody unless a railroad
comes in. The people would only lend him the money for a little while,
and Alton had hoped to pay them out of a silver mine, but Hallam, it
seems, has been working against him and got somebody to relocate the
mine because Alton did not get there in time. Now unless Alton and his
company can pay those dollars back the other people will take all he
has away from him, and if the railroad is ever built it is they or
Hallam, who has been trying to buy the mortgages from them, who will
benefit."

"But," said Alice Deringham, "how was it that Mr. Alton did not make
sure of the mine?"

"That is just what puzzles Tom. He stayed down here too long, and then
there was a flood or something that delayed him. Still, if he had gone
when he intended he would have been in time."

Mrs. Forel glanced at her companion curiously, but the girl sat very
still with her face turned aside. It was almost a minute before she
spoke again.

"And Mr. Alton takes it hardly?"

"Tom doesn't seem to know. Alton, he thinks, must be beaten, but he
told him he meant holding on until the last dollar had gone. After
all, I can't help feeling sorry for him. It must be hard to get
oneself crippled and then lose everything, while Tom declares there was
nothing in that other affair about the girl."

Alice Deringham said nothing, but Mrs. Forel saw the blood creep into
the polished whiteness of her neck, and wished that she would look up.
The girl's rigid stillness was, she fancied, a trifle unnatural, and
suggested that there was a good deal behind it.

"Well," she said presently, "that is all I know, and I think Tom is
waiting for me."

Mrs. Forel went away, and Alice Deringham sat where she had left her,
white in face now, with something that was not wholly unlike horror in
her eyes.

"And," she said, "I kept him."

Half an hour passed, and she did not move. Anger against her father
and horror of herself were