of its unfolding. The great man
alone, with that power of ignoring the obvious, which had contributed so
largely to his success, continued his running comments in his cheerful,
dogmatic tone. Some twenty minutes later, when, after an indifferent
inspection of the house on our part, and a vigilant one on the
General's, we rolled back again in the barouche over the dusty road, he
was still perfectly unaware that the surprise he had sprung had not been
attended by a triumph of pleasure for us all.

"You're foolish, my dear, about those big poplars," he said a dozen
times, while he sat staring, with an unseeing gaze, at the thin red line
of the sunset over the corn-fields. "They ought to come down, and then
you could see clean to the old Smith place, where I used to go as a boy.
I learned to shoot there. Fell in love, too, when I wasn't more than
twelve with Miss Lucy Smith, my first flame--pretty as a pink, all the
boys were in love with her."

Sally's hand stole into mine under the muslin ruffles of her dress, and
her eyes, when she looked at me, held a soft, deprecating expression, as
if she were trying to understand, and could not, how she had hurt me.
When at last we came to our own door and the General, after insisting
again that the only improvement needed to the place was that the big
poplars should come down, had driven serenely away in his big barouche,
we ascended the steps in silence, and entered the sitting-room, which
was filled with the pale gloom of twilight. While I lighted the lamp,
she waited in the centre of the room, with the soft, deprecating
expression still in her eyes.

"What is it, Ben?" she asked, facing the lamp as I turned; "did you mind
my keeping the idea a secret? Why, I thought that would please you."

"It isn't that, Sally, it isn't that,--but--I've lost the money."

"Lost it, Ben?"

"I saw what I thought was a good chance to speculate--and I speculated."

"You speculated with the ten thousand dollars?"

"Yes."

"And lost it?"

"Yes."

For a moment her face was inscrutable.

"When did it happen?"

"I found out to-day that it was gone beyond hope of recovery."

"Then you haven't known it all along and kept it from me?"

"I was going to tell you as soon as I came up this afternoon, but the
General was here."

"I am glad of that," she said quietly. "If you had kept anything from me
and worried over it, it would have broken my heart."

"Sally, I have been a fool."

"Yes