take offence. "Of course," he went on, "this doesn't affect your stock
if you should ever get it back from Blount. That is still your property,
according to law, and this quit-claim just guarantees me free entry and
possession. We'll get Virginia to witness the agreement."

"All right," bridled the Widow and watched him cynically as he wrote out
the quit-claim and check. "Oh! Actually!" she mocked as he put the check
in her hands. "I just wanted to see if you were bluffing."

"Well, you know now," he answered and sat in stony silence until she
departed with a triumphant smirk. Then he glanced at Virginia and
motioned towards the street, but she sighed and shook her head.

"No," she said, "I can't leave the house--mother is likely to start any
time, now."

"I suppose you'll be glad to go," he suggested at last as she sat down
and gathered up the kittens. "The old town is sure awful dead."

"Yes--I guess so," she agreed half-heartedly. "You'd think so, but we
don't seem to go."

"Is there anything I can do for you?" he inquired after a silence. "You
know what I told you once, Virginia."

"Yes, I know," she answered bitterly, "but--Oh, I'm ashamed to let you
help me, after the way I acted up about Charley."

"Well, forget it," he said at length. "I guess I get kind of ugly when
anyone doubts my good faith. It's on account of my father, and calling
him Honest John--but say, I forgot to tell the news!"

Virginia looked up inquiringly and he beckoned her into the corner where
no one could overhear his words.

"Blount sent for me yesterday--trying to sell me the mine," he whispered
in her ear, "and I made him show me his stock. And when I looked on the
back of his promotion certificates--the ones he got for promoting the
mine--I found by the endorsements that he'd sold every one of them
before or during the panic. Do you see? They were street certificates,
passing from hand to hand without going to the company for transfer, but
every broker that handled them had written down his name as a memorandum
of the date and sale. Don't you see what he did--he set your father
against my father, and my father against yours, and all the time, like
the crook he is, he was selling them both out for a profit. I could have
killed him, the old dog, only I thought it would hurt him more to
whipsaw him out of his mine; but listen now, Virginia, don't you think
we can be friends--because my father never robbed anybody of a cent! He
tho