ness down there--." His hand swept toward the window through
which could be seen the lights of that part of the town which clustered
about the various mills and factories of which he was owner.

"I know there is a lot, Dad, but how much I don't know."

"There's $250,000 in plant alone, boy, but there's more than money, a
lot more than money--" Then, after a pause, as if to himself, "A lot
more than money--there's brain sweat and heart agony and prayers and
tears--and, yes, life, boy, your mother's life and mine. We worked and
saved and prayed and planned--"

He stepped quickly toward the window, drew aside the curtain and pointed
to a dark mass of headland beyond the twinkling lights.

"You see the Bluff there. Fifty years ago I stood with my father on
that Bluff and watched the logs come down the river to the sawmill--his
sawmill, into which he had put his total capital, five hundred dollars.
I remember well his words, 'My son, if you live out your life you will
see on that flat a town where thousands of men and women will find homes
and, please God, happiness.' Your mother and I watched that town grow
for forty years, and we tried to make people happy--at least, if they
were not it was no fault of hers. Of course, other hands have been at
the work since then, but her hands and mine more than any other, and
more than all others together were in it, and her heart, too, was in it
all."

The boy turned from the window and sat down heavily in a deep armchair,
his hands covering his face. His heart was still sick with the ache
that had smitten it that day in front of Amiens when the Colonel,
his father's friend, had sent for him and read him the wire which had
brought the terrible message of his mother's death. The long months of
days and nights heavy with watching, toiling, praying, agonising, for
her twin sons, and for the many boys who had gone out from the little
town wore out her none too robust strength. Then, the sniper's bullet
that had pierced the heart of her boy seemed to reach to her heart as
well. After that, the home that once had been to its dwellers the most
completely heart-satisfying spot in all the world became a place of
dread, of haunting ghosts, of acutely poignant memories. They used the
house for sleeping in and for eating in, but there was no living in it
longer. To them it was a tomb, though neither would acknowledge it and
each bore with it for the other's sake.

"Honestly, Dad, I wish I cou