other made her life a hell.
I'm going to marry her, and take her out of it."

"It's mighty good of you," Robert said, rather stupidly.

"There ain't no other way for me to do," replied Flynn. "She thinks
the world of me, and I suppose I'm to blame."

"I hope she'll make you a good wife and you'll be happy," said
Robert.

"She thinks all creation of me," replied Flynn, with the simplest
vanity and acquiescence in the responsibility laid upon him in the
world. "That shot wasn't meant for Mr. Risley," said Flynn, as
Robert approached the office door. His eyes flashed. He himself
would gladly have been shot for the sake of Ellen Brewster. He was
going to marry, and try to fulfill his simple code of honor, but all
his life he would be married to one woman, with another ideal in his
heart; that was inevitable.

"I know it wasn't," Robert replied, grimly.

"Everything is quiet now," said Dennison, with his smooth smile.
Robert made no reply, but entered the great work-room. "He's mighty
stand-offish, now he's got his own way," Dennison remarked in a
whisper to Nellie Stone. He leaned closely over her. Flynn had
followed Robert. The girl glanced up at the foreman, who was
unmarried, although years older than she, and her face quivered a
little, but it seemed due to a surface sensitiveness.

"I want to know if you've heard that Ed is going to marry Mamie
Brady, after all," she whispered.

Dennison nodded.

She knitted her forehead over a column of figures. Dennison leaned
his face so close that his blond-bearded cheek touched hers. She
made a little impatient motion.

"Oh, go long, Jim Dennison," she said, but her tone was
half-hearted.

Dennison persisted, bending her head gently backward until he kissed
her. She pushed him away, but she smiled weakly.

"You didn't want Ed Flynn. Why, he's a Roman Catholic, and you're
Baptist, Nell," he said.

"Who said I did?" she retorted, angrily. "Why, I wouldn't marry Ed
Flynn if he was the last man in the world."

"You'd 'nough sight better marry me," said Dennison.

"Go along; you're fooling."

"No, I ain't. I mean it, honest."

"I don't want to marry anybody yet awhile," said Nellie Stone; but
when Dennison kissed her again she did not repulse him, and even
nestled her head with a little caressing motion into the hollow of
his shoulder.

Then they both started violently apart as Flynn entered.

"Say!" he proclaimed, "what do you think? The boss has just told t