know. The broker in question is a Plantagould
man."

"Still I fail to 'connect up,' as the linemen say."

"Do you? Ah, David, David! will you leave it for a woman to point out what
you should have suspected the moment you read that bit of gossip in Mr.
Hunnicott's letter?"

Her hand was on the arm of her chair. He covered it with his own.

"I'll leave it for you, Portia. You are my good angel."

She withdrew the hand quickly, but there was no more than playful
resentment in her retort.

"Shame on you!" she scoffed. "What would Miss Brentwood say?"

"I wish you would leave her out of it," he frowned. "You are continually
ignoring the fact that she has promised to be the wife of another man."

"And has thereby freed you from all obligations of loyalty? Don't deceive
yourself: women are not made that way. Doubtless she will go on and marry
the other man in due season; but she will never forgive you if you smash
her ideals. But we were talking about the things you ought to have
guessed. Fetch me the atlas from the book-case--lower shelf; right-hand
corner; that's it."

He did it; and in further obedience opened the thin quarto at the map of
the United States. There were heavy black lines, inked in with a pen,
tracing out the various ramifications of a great railway system. The
nucleus of the system lay in the middle West, but there was a growing
network of the black lines reaching out toward the Pacific. And connecting
the trans-Mississippi network with the western was a broad red line
paralleling the Trans-Western Railway.

She smiled at his sudden start of comprehension.

"Do you begin to suspect things?" she asked.

He nodded his head.

"You ought to be a man. If you were, I should never give you a moment's
peace until you consented to take a partnership with me. It's as plain as
day, now."

"Is it? Then I wish you would make it appear so to me. I am not half as
subtile as you give me credit for being."

"Yet you worked this out."

"That was easy enough; after I had seen Mrs. Brentwood's letter, and yours
from Mr. Hunnicott. The Plantagould people want your railroad, and the
receivership is a part of a plan for acquiring it. But why is Major
Guilford spending so much money for improvements?"

"His reasons are not far to seek now that you have shown me where to look.
His instructions are to run the stock down so that the Plantagould can buy
it in. Cut rates and big expenditures will do that--have done