elf
go; he neither allowed himself to wonder at, nor regret, her choice.
He was too honest to decry in another much which he knew would not
measure up to Golden Rule standards in himself. And he had a really
great man's unshakable faith in his own flesh and blood.

Yet he had been troubled more than a little since his Christmas trip to
Morrison. When he turned a page he turned it for all time, but in the
last day or two he had caught himself surrepticiously trying to steal a
glance at some which had only just rustled into place. Dexter Allison
had left brilliant men of cross-examination panting impotently at the
barrenness of their efforts; he had known it and enjoyed it to the
full. But he knew, too, that he could never face, jauntily or
otherwise, one reproach in the dusky eyes of the girl with whom he had
more than once played truant, to breakfast with Caleb and Miss Sarah.
And he was facing that thought, nearer to panic than he had ever been
before, the night before New Year's, when Wickersham was announced at
nine. He was thinking of Barbara's mother when he beckoned his guest
to a chair, shook his head over his red cheeks, and offered a cigar.

"Devilish cold weather," he grunted, none too graciously, for he had
not wanted to be disturbed just then.

The younger man admitted that it was. His mind, plainly, was not upon
the weather, but he found difficulty in introducing a topic of his own
choosing. Outspokenness had never been one of Archie Wickersham's
boldest characteristics, so Allison assisted him now. Allison liked a
man to be outspoken.

"Well," he demanded, "let's hear it. What's on your mind?"

There are times when hatred will betray 'most any man. Hatred now led
Wickersham to speak not wisely but with venom.

"I want you to refuse to renew your name on the East Coast notes," he
said. "They are due on the second."

Few men had ever said "I want you to" to Dexter Allison and, as he put
it, "gotten away with it to any great extent." And of all nights this
one in particular was the least likely to prove propitious for such an
attempt. That was Wickersham's oversight.

"So!" said Dexter, "so! Well, now for your reason."

Wickersham had not learned until after Barbara's departure that she was
spending the holidays in Morrison, for he had himself expected to be
away. And it is only fair to the girl to say that she had honestly
forgotten to apprise him of her plan, in her real excitement