k busy, anyway," she said.

CHAPTER X

BY RIGHT OF POSSESSION

Janet Hosmer made no effort to guess what her fiance would say when
next he called, or to prepare a defense of explanations and excuses.
She was not that kind. What was necessary to be stated at the proper
time would arise to her lips. Nevertheless she had a heaviness of
heart, a natural distress as to the unpleasantness in prospect; and
had only the slightest hope that Ed would ignore or refuse to hear
Burkhardt's story. The man would tell her lover, of that she might
rest assured, out of hatred for the engineer if for no other reason.

She knew how passionately Ed was set against Steele Weir, for a score
of times she had heard his incensed opinions, increasing lately to
tirades. It had seemed strange at first that one could be so bitter
over a simple difference like that of who should work at the dam. But
ever since Weir had uttered his hoarse exclamation regarding her
engagement, words so full of protest and amazed indignation, she was
aware the cause went deeper.

At that moved ejaculation of her companion that night something, too,
had settled on her heart like a weight--an indefinable foreboding. The
anxiety aroused about Ed's father and his integrity came to include Ed
likewise. Loyalty of course required that she accept the man she had
promised to marry, without reservations. As between him and others
there should be but one choice. But did she really know him? Was he
simply the open, jolly, generous, upright adoring fellow he appeared?
Or were there less pleasant, more ignoble sides to his character? Was
he, as well as his father, capable of a mean, unworthy, selfish
persecution of another?

The engineer had made no open accusation against him--or against any
one, for that matter. She had done her best to get him to express
himself, but he had refused. Enemies he might have, but he would not
discuss the fact beyond admitting it was true. Only at moments when
his restraint slipped could she measure his feelings. Quite different
that from Ed Sorenson's voluble, heated denunciations of the other.
Yet, heavens, how appalled this reserved man had been at hearing of
her engagement! Far more than words, far more than any open charge,
did his face and incredulity, both so patently sincere, bespeak the
mistake she was making and justify gnawing doubts of her lover.

As she approached her home Ed Sorenson came dashing out to spring into
his r