e and unreasonable pain. The young
minister had lived in Canaan only a few months, and Joe had never seen
him until that morning; but he liked the short, honest talk he had
made; liked his cadenceless voice and keen, dark face; and, recalling
what he had heard Martin Pike vociferating in his brougham one Sunday,
perceived that Ladew was the fellow who had "got to go" because his
sermons did not please the Judge. Yet Ariel remembered for more than a
fortnight a passage from one of these sermons. And as Joe looked at the
manly and intelligent face opposite him, it did not seem strange that
she should.

He resolutely turned his eyes to the open window and saw that they had
entered the cemetery, were near the green knoll where Eskew was to lie
beside a brother who had died long ago. He let the minister help Ariel
out, going quickly forward himself with Buckalew; and then--after the
little while that the restoration of dust to dust mercifully needs--he
returned to the carriage only to get his hat.

Ariel and Ladew and the Squire were already seated and waiting.
"Aren't you going to ride home with us?" she asked, surprised.

"No," he explained, not looking at her. "I have to talk with Norbert
Flitcroft. I'm going back with him. Good-bye."

His excuse was the mere truth, his conversation with Norbert, in the
carriage which they managed to secure to themselves, continuing
earnestly until Joe spoke to the driver and alighted at a corner, near
Mr. Farbach's Italian possessions. "Don't forget," he said, as he
closed the carriage door, "I've got to have both ends of the string in
my hands."

"Forget!" Norbert looked at the cupola of the Pike Mansion, rising
above the maples down the street. "It isn't likely I'll forget!"

When Joe entered the "Louis Quinze room" which some decorator, drunk
with power, had mingled into the brewer's villa, he found the owner and
Mr. Sheehan, with five other men, engaged in a meritorious attempt to
tone down the apartment with smoke. Two of the five others were
prosperous owners of saloons; two were known to the public (whose
notion of what it meant when it used the term was something of the
vaguest) as politicians; the fifth was Mr. Farbach's closest friend,
one who (Joe had heard) was to be the next chairman of the city
committee of the party. They were seated about a table, enveloped in
blue clouds, and hushed to a grave and pertinent silence which
clarified immediately the circum