omebody with her."

A purple flush rose to the General's face, and the expression in his
small, watery grey eyes held me speechless.

"Confound you, Ben!" he exclaimed, in a burst of temper, "do you mean to
tell me you don't know that George's blamed foolishness is the talk of
the town? Why, he hasn't let Sally out of his sight for the last two
years."

"No, I didn't know it," I replied.

"Great Scott! Where are your wits?"

"In the stock market," I answered bitterly. Then something in me, out of
the chaos and the darkness, rose suddenly, as if with wings, into the
light. "Of course Sally is an angel, General, we both know that--but how
she could have helped seeing that George is the better man of us, I
don't for a minute pretend to understand."

"Well, I never had much opinion of George," responded the General. "It
always seemed to me that he ought to have made a great deal more of
himself than he has done."

"What he has made of himself," I answered, and my voice sounded harsh in
my ears, "is the man that Sally ought to have married."

I went out hurriedly, forgetting to assist him, and limping painfully,
he followed me to the porch, and called after me as I ran down into the
street. Looking back, as I turned the corner, I saw him getting with
difficulty into his buggy, which waited beside the curbing, and it
seemed to me that his great bulky figure, in his fur-lined overcoat, was
unreal and intangible like the images that one sees in sleep.

The train was about to pull out as I entered the station, and swinging
on to the rear coach, I settled myself into the first chair I came to,
which happened to be directly behind the shining bald head and red neck
of a man I knew. As I shrank back, he turned, caught sight of me, and
held out his hand with an easy air of good-fellowship.

"So General Bolingbroke has retired from the South Midland and Atlantic
Railroad, I hear," he remarked. "Well, there's a big job waiting for
somebody, but he'll have to be a big man to fit it."

A sudden ridiculous annoyance took possession of me; the General, the
South Midland Railroad, and the bald-headed man before me, all appeared
to enter my consciousness like small, stinging gnats that swarmed about
larger bodies. What was the railroad to me, if I had lost Sally? Had I
lost her? Was it possible to win her again? "I am in trouble," the words
whirled in my thoughts, "and as I do not wish to disturb you at this
time, I have gone o