t was surely pending. He went home that night, full of high
expectations. When he made a great success of his life and came back
to Algonquin, rich and with a name, he would go to her and show her he
had been right, and she had been wrong.

CHAPTER XII

"THE MELODY DEADEN'D"

"And you don't mean to tell me you were such a fool as to say he might
go?" J. P. Thornton, walking up the hill for the fourth time on the
way home from a session meeting with Lawyer Ed, asked the question
again in an extremity of indignation.

And Lawyer Ed answered as he had done each time before:

"I couldn't stand in the boy's way, Jack; I just couldn't."

They had argued the question for an hour, up and down the hills between
their two homes, and had come to no agreement. That Roderick had had
an offer to tempt any young man there was no doubt. A partnership in
the firm of Elliot and Kent, solicitors for the British North American
Transcontinental Railroad, was such a chance as came the way of few at
his age.

And yet Mr. Thornton declared that he should have refused it
unconditionally. Not so Lawyer Ed; his generous heart condoned the boy.

"It's the chance of a life-time, Jack," he declared. "It would be
shameful to keep him out of it, and, mind you, he wouldn't say he would
go until I urged it."

"Oh, blow him!" J. P. was a very dignified gentleman and did not
revert to his boyhood's slang except under extreme provocation. "He
shouldn't have allowed you to urge him. And what about the brilliant
prospect you gave up once just because his father was in need?"

"Well, never mind that," said Lawyer Ed, hurriedly. "He doesn't know
anything about that and he's not going to either."

"And it was Bill Graham who wanted you, and you wouldn't go. And now
Bill's taking him away from you. He ought to be ashamed!"

"Bill thought he was doing me a kindness. He knew Rod's success is
mine."

J. P. was silent from sheer exhaustion of all sane argument. He was
grieved and bitterly disappointed for his friend's sake. Ed was in
imperative need of a rest and just when life was looking a little
easier to him, and the long-deferred holiday was within reach, Roderick
was deserting.

If they could only have visited the Holy Land before he left, it would
not have seemed so bad. But though Roderick had consented to remain
until his chief returned, Lawyer Ed had felt he could not go, for he
must busy himself gathering up the th