e tried to recall what things cost that McCloud
could not be angry with her; indeed, the pretty eyes behind the
patient spectacles would disarm any one. In the end he took inventory
on the basis of the retail prices, dividing it afterward by five, as
Marion estimated the average profit in the business at five hundred
per cent.--this being what the woman she bought out had told her.

How then, McCloud asked himself, could Marion be normally hard pressed
for money? He talked to her learnedly about fixed charges, but even
these seemed difficult to arrive at. There was no rent, because the
building belonged to the railroad company, and when the real-estate
and tax man came around and talked to McCloud about rent for the Boney
Street property, McCloud told him to chase himself. There was no
insurance, because no one would dream of insuring Marion's stock
boxes; there were no bills payable, because no travelling man would
advise a line of credit to an inexperienced and, what was worse, an
unpractical milliner. Marion did her own trimming, so there were no
salaries except to Katie Dancing. It puzzled McCloud to find the leak.
How could he know that Marion was keeping nearly all the block
supplied with funds? So McCloud continued to raise the price of his
table-board, and, though Marion insisted he was paying her too much,
held that he must be eating her out of house and home.

In her dining-room, which connected through a curtained door with the
shop, McCloud sat one day alone eating his dinner. Marion was in front
serving a customer. McCloud heard voices in the shop, but gave no heed
till a man walked through the curtained doorway and he saw Murray
Sinclair standing before him. The stormy interview with Callahan and
Blood at the Wickiup had taken place just a week before, and McCloud,
after what Sinclair had then threatened, though not prepared, felt as
he saw him that anything might occur. McCloud being in possession of
the little room, however, the initiative fell on Sinclair, who,
looking his best, snatched his hat from his head and bowed ironically.
"My mistake," he said blandly.

"Come right in," returned McCloud, not knowing whether Marion had a
possible hand in her husband's unexpected appearance. "Do you want to
see me?"

"I don't," smiled Sinclair; "and to be perfectly frank," he added with
studied consideration, "I wish to God I never had seen you.
Well--you've thrown me, McCloud."

"You've thrown yourself, ha