mmon folk. Indeed
it was a crime against his fellow-men, this maintaining a bankrupt
stock unless he could patch it into vigor. There were hints too that
fell indefinably now and then about the Ellwell affairs, the
stock-broker's poor health, the perpetual disappointments that
discouraged him. His wife had relapsed into the Four Corner's habit of
regarding incapacity and folly as mere misfortune. It irritated him to
realize all this sentimental pity over a blackguard. Yet she was
right; she had the opinion of centuries on her side; was she not their
daughter before she was his wife?

There were times when Ruby came on from New York for a visit, bringing
her child, a boy, with her. Thornton grimly noted this vigorous little
animal of a nephew and compared him minutely with his own feeble
child. He compared also the mothers. Ruby had already begun the
period of over-bloom. The Bradleys, he gathered, lived a kind of a
tramp existence, moving from boarding-house to hotel as Bradley went
up or down. And Ruby, with all her assurance and her affluent person,
had not lost the Ellwell ailments. Yet to her child had been given the
strong stock he envied. Nature had coolly overlooked his, and carried
her blessings where they were not deserved.

Such reflections made him more tender to his wife. He wondered if she
ever thought of this contrast.

When he was working in his little back-room study, he wondered what
the two sisters could find to talk about for hours. He fancied that
they were going over the old items of the family budget, the thousand
trivialities of family gossip that never seemed to be ended and never
lost their interest. One day he could hear Ruby earnestly talking--she
had just come from New York--and then he thought he caught the sound
of suppressed tears. After a time he rose nervously and walked out to
his wife's room where the sisters were.

Ruby's face was excited though sullen. She had not taken off her hat,
and in her haste her gloves had fallen on the floor by the door. Her
sister was crying, quietly. "What's up?" Thornton turned sharply to
Ruby, his voice betraying his desire to sweep her out of his life
forever.

A slight sneer crossed her face. She said nothing, and punched the
footstool with the toe of her boot sullenly, as if resenting his
appearance. As Thornton waited for an explanation, she rose and picked
up her gloves.

"You'll have to tell him," she spoke roughly to her sister. "I'm going