ily
communication with Esther, and that she must ache to know him, has
sustained David Lockwin in his penance.

The crime he committed, he feels, has been atoned in this year of
lover's agony. That agony was necessary--in order that Esther might be
gradually prepared for the revelation.

She has not been prepared. The labor must begin again, and on new
lines.

The receiver of the Coal and Oil Trust Company's Institution this day
declares a dividend of 10 per cent. The lover may draw over $7,000--a
magnificent estate. It seems greater to him than the wealth of the
Indies or the Peruvians seemed to the early navigators.

He sells his belongings to a second-hand dealer. He hastens his
departure. The folks at Walker street can get another book-keeper.
Robert Chalmers is going to San Francisco. Easy to lie now after the
practice of nearly two years.

But to think that Esther has not read a word of all he has written!
David Lockwin hisses the name of Dr. Tarpion. Many is the time they
have tented together. But how did the doctor know? He had only a
type-written anonymous communication.

Nevertheless this lover curses the administrator as the cause of the
fiasco.

"But for him my path would be easy."

David Lockwin thinks of Tarpion's threat about a claimant. It grows
clear to him that there is a Chicagoan alive who can view his own
cenotaph, his own memorial hospital, his own home--who can proclaim
himself to be the husband, and yet there will be men like Tarpion who
will deny all.

Lockwin's face annoys him. "Why was I such a fool to go without the
proper treatment in that outlandish region! Why was I so anxious to be
disguised?"

Oh, it is all on account of the letters. That busybody of an
administrator and censor has undone all! Better he had never been
born. Why should a doctor neglect his patients to separate husband and
wife? The wise way will be to march to the house at Chicago and take
possession.

"That I will do!" the man at last declares. He is maddened. He cares
nothing for reputation. He cannot bear the thought that Dr. Tarpion,
an old friend, should day by day burn the epistles that evinced so much
scholarship, charity and sympathy. The lover is not poor. No man with
$7,000 in his pocket is poor. He is not driven back to Esther by want,
as it was before. That stings the man to recall it. No, he has means.
But if he were poor, he would work for the dear lady who loved him