with her," he resolved, "as if she were already my
wife. She shall share my sorrows as well as my joys. And what a comfort
her sympathy will be!"

He slept little that night, yet on the morrow he went to his work with a
buoyancy of spirit such as he had not known since that evening when he
had first declared his love.

It was in this mood of elation and hopefulness that he went to the
Hallams' an hour before the supper time. He did not yet know what Hallam
and Temple had been trying to do, and of course he knew nothing of the
success they had achieved. But in his present mood he was optimistic
enough to hope for some good result. He thought he might meet Temple at
supper if his work, whatever it was, had been finished, and when he
found that his friend was neither present nor expected, he satisfied
himself with the reflection that the task Temple had undertaken was very
probably one requiring a good deal more time than had elapsed since he
began it. A little later he got more definite information.

"Temple isn't to be with us," he half said, half asked, after the
greetings were over.

"No," answered Captain Will. "He has gone back to the mines. He is
rather done up with the work and anxiety and loss of sleep. I tried to
make him take possession of your rooms this afternoon, for a
straight-away sleep, but he thought he'd rather go back to his wife till
the tenth. He'll be here, however, in time to assist at the _grand
finale_, as the show people call it."

"I'm afraid I don't understand," said Duncan with a look of inquiry.

"Why, there's to be a meeting of the stockholders of the X National on
the tenth, you know."

"I didn't know. But what of it?"

"Why, only that your friend Temple wants to be there, when he and I
march into the meeting controlling a majority interest and elect a board
of directors for old Napper Tandy, leaving him completely out of it. Not
a word about that, however, to anybody, till the time comes. We want to
add to the dramatic effect by making the thing a complete surprise."

If Captain Will Hallam had been a robust boy of ten, chewing upon a
particularly toothsome morsel, he could not have shown a greater relish
for what was in his mouth than he did for these sentences as he uttered
them. His manner had all of active satisfaction in it that an eager card
player manifests when he saves a doubtful game by throwing down a final
and unsuspected trump at the end of a hand that has seemed to