working too hard," she begins, in her sympathetic voice. "All
this has been a great care. You ought to have something----"

His sensitive pride takes the alarm. Does she, too, think he had his
covetous eye on the St. Vincent fortune?

"Don't!" he interrupts, in a strained, imploring tone. "I should hate
to have you of all others think I was moved in whatever I have done by
any thought of personal gain. I could wish that not one dollar of gain
had come to me,--and it has not," he says, defiantly. "I will confess
to you that I was moved by the profoundest pity for a dying man, and I
was afraid then that we should all go to ruin together."

"Ah," she returns, and a beguiling light plays over her face like some
swift ripple, "I never looked upon it in any other light. I knew you
better than you believed I did."

He has one friend, he thinks, in a daring, obstinate sort of way quite
new to him.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Desires unsatisfied, abortive hope,
Repinings which provoked vindictive thought,
These restless elements forever wrought.

SOUTHEY.

"Good night," John Latimer says, as they stand at the gate of the
eyrie. They have been spending a delightful evening. Prof. Freilgrath
is on his way home, and after a brief visit must make a flying trip to
Germany. Latimer has half decided to go with him, and has been
persuading Floyd. It looks very tempting,--a two or three months'
vacation.

"I ought to go up to the factory," he begins, abruptly. "Our watchman
is down with the rheumatism. The foreman stayed last night, and I
promised to send in some one to-night. Am I growing old and forgetful?"

Latimer laughs as he asks how much money is in the safe. If half a
million, he will go.

"At all events I will walk up and see," Grandon says, and strides
along.

There is no moon, but he has been over the road so many times that it
is no journey at all. Silence and darkness reign supreme. He unfastens
the door with his skeleton key, lights a burner in the hallway and a
safety lamp which he carries with him. How weird and ghostly these long
passages look! The loom-rooms seem tenanted by huge, misshapen denizens
of some preadamic world. He stands and looks, and fantastic ideas float
through his brain.

The engine-room is satisfactory. Everything is right, except that once
or twice he catches a strong whiff of kerosene, which he hates utterly.
The men may have been using it for something. He i