f
together, and said, "I know I'm a foolish old man, Bob, only I feel a
good deal depends on knowing the truth--a good deal of my attitude
toward him."

Hendricks looked at the colonel for an abstracted moment, and then
said: "Colonel, Adrian Brownwell is hard up--very hard up, and you
don't know how he is suffering with chagrin at being beaten by the
_Index_. He is quick-tempered--just as you are, Colonel." He paused a
moment and took the colonel by the hand,--a fat, pink hand, without
much iron in it,--and brought him to his feet. "And about that other
matter," he added, as he put his arm about the colonel, "you didn't
sell her. I know that; I give you my word on that. It was fifteen
years ago--maybe longer--since Molly and I were--since we went
together as boy and girl. That's a long time ago, Colonel, a long time
ago, and I've managed to forget just why we--why we didn't make a go
of it." He smiled kindly at the colonel as he spoke--a smile that the
colonel had not seen in Hendricks' face in many years. Then the mask
fell on his face, and the colonel saw it fall--the mask of the man
over the face of the boy. A puzzled, bewildered look crept into the
gray, fat face, and Hendricks could see that the doubt was still in
the colonel's heart. The younger man pressed the colonel's hand, and
the two moved toward the door. Suddenly tears flushed into the dimmed
eyes of the colonel, and he cried, through a smile, "Bob Hendricks, I
believe in my soul you're a liar--a damn liar, sir, but, boy, you're
a thoroughbred--God bless you, you're a thoroughbred." And he turned
and shuffled from the room and out of the bank.

When Colonel Martin Culpepper left Robert Hendricks at the door of the
directors' room of the Exchange National Bank, the colonel was
persuaded in his heart that his daughter had married Adrian Brownwell
to please her parents, and the colonel realized that day that her
parents were pleased with Brownwell as a suitor for their daughter,
because in time of need he had come to their rescue with money, and
incidentally because he was of their own blood and caste--a Southern
gentleman of family. The colonel went to the offices of the Culpepper
Mortgage and Loan Company and went over his bank-book again. The check
that he drew would take all but three hundred and forty-five dollars
out of the accounts of his company, and not a dollar of it was his.
The Culpepper Mortgage Company was lending other people's money. It
had