the carriage talking to Cecil, half wrapped in a
fluffy white shawl. She is just in range of a window, and the man
watching her feels that Floyd Grandon has more than his share of this
world's favors. What has life done for _him_? asks Jasper Wilmarth
with bitter scorn. Given him a crooked, unhandsome body, a lowering
face, with its heavy brows and square, rugged features. No woman has
ever cared for him, no woman would ever worship him, while dozens no
doubt would allow Grandon to ride rough-shod over them if he only
smiled afterward. He has come to hate the man so that if he could
ordain any evil upon him he would gladly.

He has dreamed of being master here, and yet in the beginning it was
not all treachery. Eugene Grandon was taking it rapidly to ruin, and he
raised no hand to stay. From the first he has had a secret hope in St.
Vincent's plans, but there was no one to carry them out. When the elder
son came home the probability was, seeing the dubious state of affairs,
he would wash his hands of the whole matter, and it would go, as many a
man's life work had before, for a mere song. In this collapse he would
take it with doubt and feigned unwillingness, and calling in the best
talent to be had, would do his utmost to make it a success. But all
this had been traversed by the vigilant brain of another.

If that were all! He had also dreamed of the fair girl sitting yonder.
A mere child, trained to respect and belief in her elders, and
obedience of the Old World order, secluded from society, from young
men, her gratitude might be worked upon as well as her father's fears
for her future. Once his wife, he would move heaven and earth for her
love. She should be kept in luxury, surrounded by everything that could
rouse tenderness and delight; she should be the star of his life, and
he would be her very slave. There were instances of Proserpine loving
her dark-browed Pluto, and sharing his world. Wilmarth had brooded over
this until it seemed more than probable,--certain.

And here his antagonist has come with his inexorable "check!" A perfect
stranger, with no hatred in his soul, only set upon by fate to play
strange havoc with another's plans, to circumvent without even knowing
what he did. If the place had to pass into other hands, as well his as
a stranger's, he has reasoned.

He was as well off as if Mr. James Grandon were alive, and he had not
railed at fate then. It was because he had seen possibilities, the
a