eparate one of whom the scowling patient in this room,
with fierce tears perpetually in his throat, believed he owed
explanation and restitution.

Garnet!--owned half of Widewood! March's confinement here dated from the
night when he had at length unearthed the well-hid truth of how the
stately Major had acquired it. No sooner had Ravenel and Garnet got the
Land Company into its living grave, than Gamble and Bulger, with Leggett
looming mysteriously in their large shadows, forced the Construction
Company into liquidation by a kind demand upon Mattox, Crickwater, and
Pettigrew for certain call loans of two years' standing, accepted in
settlement their shares of the Widewood lands wrested from the Land
Company, and then somehow privately induced Garnet to take those
cumbersome assets off their hands at a round cash price. That was the
day before March had got home and Bulger had cleared out. Gamble had
departed much more leisurely. Whenever money was at stake Gamble had the
courage of a bear with whelps. Whenever he said, "I can't afford to stay
here," it meant that his milk-pail was full and the cow empty. This time
it meant he had, as Shotwell put it, "broken the record of the three
counties--pulled the wool over Jeff-Jack's eyes;" for he had sold his
railroad to a system hostile to the fortunes of Suez.

The other half of Widewood was public domain.

"Thank Heaven for that!" said March, lying dressed on his bed.

"Suez thanks Mr. Ravenel," melodiously responded his mother. Parson
Tombs had brought her up here and slipped out again on creaking tiptoe.

"Why, mother, it was I made it so in my original plan!"

"O my beloved boy, it was in Mr. Ravenel's original plan when he lent
your poor father the money to send you to school. I have it on good
authority."

The son gave a vexed laugh. "O, as to that, why Cornelius Leggett
suggested it when----"

"John! forbear!" Mrs. March was not prejudiced. She could admit the name
of a colored person in a discussion; but _that_ miscreant had lured her
trusted Jane to the altar and written back that she was one of the best
wives he had had for years.

John forbore. He was profoundly distressed, but tried to speak more
lightly. "Law! mother, one reason urged by Major Garnet for our
privately reserving that trifling scrap of sixty acres on the west side
of the creek was so's to make each half of the company's tract an even
fifty thousand acres, one for the three counties and th