on there?"

"There was a little in the papers a month or so ago."

"And--"

"And?"

"Yes, isn't there something else?"

"Oh, you mean the letters from the directors?"

"Exactly. Your sources of information are first from those interested
only in a 'story,' without much regard for getting to the disagreeable
bottom, and second from those interested in getting a verdict for their
own side."

"Is there any other source?"

"There is. Congress sent a special investigating committee out there--"

"What did it find?"

"The question proves my point. The findings of that committee are buried
away in bulky volumes that nobody sees, while the world is fed half on
fiction and half on lies."

"Why don't the newspapers tell us what's in those bulky volumes?"

"Because," he said, with ineffable dejection, as if trying to answer a
question that he knew he could not answer, "it wouldn't be
interesting--and it wouldn't pay."

"Must everything in a newspaper _pay_?" she demanded.

"That's what newspapers are run for," he said sadly. "They've got to
pay--pay--always to pay...."

His voice trailed off into a whisper, and he sat silent. She tried to
win him back to the theme upon which he had talked so earnestly, and
which had stirred her more than she realised. But as if fearful that he
had not been understood, he proved obdurate. Finally he rose and held
out his hand.

"I must say good night and good-bye, Miss Wynrod. I will not see you in
the morning. I must take the early train. It was good of you to ask me
out to-night. I'm sorry I couldn't seem more--more--appreciative."

A thought flashed across her mind as they walked slowly back to the
house.

"You will come and see me--occasionally?" she asked, as they stood on
the terrace.

"Why should you want me to?" he said quizzically, looking at her in a
curiously searching way.

"Because--because--well...." she floundered, unable to put in words
precisely what she felt.

"Because I tell you things?" he put in for her. That clarified her
answer.

"No," she said thoughtfully. "Because you say things I've only thought.
You see, I've read more than most people give me credit for," she added
somewhat irrelevantly.

He studied her from beneath his heavy eyebrows.

"Keep on, my friend," he said very slowly. "Keep on thinking. And
then ... act. There are great deeds before you--noble, shining
deeds ... if you'll only do them. Yes, some day I shall come again, and
w