ses; I've
gambled--for money--and--women--but--"

"But not on cotton, hey? Well, I don't know about cards and such; but
they can't beat cotton."

"And say, John Taylor, you're my friend." Cresswell stretched his hand
across the desk, and as he bent forward the pistol crashed to the floor.

_Nineteen_

THE DYING OF ELSPETH

Rich! This was the thought that awakened Harry Cresswell to a sense of
endless well-being. Rich! No longer the mirage and semblance of wealth,
the memory of opulence, the shadow of homage without the substance of
power--no; now the wealth was real, cold hard dollars, and in piles. How
much? He laughed aloud as he turned on his pillow. What did he care?
Enough--enough. Not less than half a million; perhaps three-quarters of
a million; perhaps--was not cotton still rising?--a whole round million!
That would mean from twenty-five to fifty thousand a year. Great
heavens! and he'd been starving on a bare couple of thousand and trying
to keep up appearances! today the Cresswells were almost millionaires;
aye, and he might be married to more millions.

He sat up with a start. Today Mary was going North. He had quite
forgotten it in the wild excitement of the cotton corner. He had
neglected her. Of course, there was always the hovering doubt as to
whether he really wanted her or not. She had the form and carriage; her
beauty, while not startling, was young and fresh and firm. On the other
hand there was about her a certain independence that he did not like to
associate with women. She had thoughts and notions of the world which
were, to his Southern training, hardly feminine. And yet even they
piqued him and spurred him like the sight of an untrained colt. He had
not seen her falter yet beneath his glances or tremble at his touch. All
this he desired--ardently desired. But did he desire her as a wife? He
rather thought that he did. And if so he must speak today.

There was his father, too, to reckon with. Colonel Cresswell, with the
perversity of the simple-minded, had taken the sudden bettering of their
fortunes as his own doing. He had foreseen; he had stuck it out; his
credit had pulled the thing through; and the trust had learned a thing
or two about Southern gentlemen.

Toward John Taylor he perceptibly warmed. His business methods were such
as a Cresswell could never stoop to; but he was a man of his word, and
Colonel Cresswell's correspondence with Mr. Easterly opened his eyes to
the