d as she dared to make it. "A man who had had trouble couldn't do
better than tell you about it," he assured her; "I have had a good lot of
trouble."

"Well, tell me," she moved toward him.

"Oh! you wouldn't care to hear about mine. I'm a sort of nobody at
present. I haven't anything in the world--no home, nothing in the whole
world. Even the little saving I had after the house was sold was--was
taken from me by sharpers."

"Tell me," she repeated, "more."

"When Valentine Simmons had sold my place, the place my grandfather built,
I had about a thousand dollars left, and I thought I would start a little
business with it, a ... a gun store,--I like guns,--here in Greenstream.
And I'd sharpen scythes, put sickles into condition, you know, things like
that. I went to Stenton with my capital in my pocket, looking for some
stock to open with, and met a man in a hotel who said he was the
representative of the Standard Hardware Company. He could let me have
everything necessary, he said, at a half of what others would charge. We
had dinner together, and he made a list of what I would need--files and
vises and parts of guns. If I mailed my cheque immediately I could get the
half off. He had cards, catalogues, references, from Richmond. I might
write there, but I'd lose time and money.

"None of the Makimmons have been good business men; we are not
distrustful. I sent the cheque to the address he said, made out to him for
the Standard Hardware Company, so that he would get the commission, the
credit of the sale." He drew a deep breath, gazing across the moonlit
fields. "The Makimmons are not distrustful," he reiterated; "he robbed me
of all my savings."

His lie would have fared badly with Pompey Hollidew, he thought grimly; it
was unconvincing, wordy; he was conscious that his assumed emotion rang
thinly. But its calculated effect was instantaneous, beyond all his hopes,
his plan.

Lettice leaned close to him with a sobbing inspiration of sympathy and
pity. "How terrible!" she cried in low tones; "you were so noble--" He
breathed heavily once more. "What a wicked, wicked man. Couldn't you get
anything back? did it all go?"

"All." His hand fell upon hers, and neither of them appeared to notice its
pressure. Her face was close to his, a tear gleamed on her young,
moon-blanched cheek. A sudden impatience seized him at her credulity, a
contempt at the ease with which she was victimized; the effort was almost
without spi