ole had something in it, one of Phil's letters to Marjie, who
knows? And that was why that letter did not get far enough back from her
thievin' fingers. Oh, I'm mighty glad Kathleen Morrison give me the
mitten for Jess Gray, one of them Red Range boys. How can a man as good
and holy as I am manage the obstreperous girls? But," he added
seriously, "this is too near to sin and disgrace to joke about now."

CHAPTER XX

THE CLEFT IN THE ROCK

And yet I know past all doubting truly,
A knowledge greater than grief can dim,
I know as he loved, he will love me duly,
Yea, better, e'en better, than I love him.

--JEAN INGELOW.

While O'mie and Lettie were acting out their little drama in the store
that afternoon, Judson was up in Mrs. Whately's parlor driving home
matters of business with a hasty and masterful hand. Marjie had slipped
away at his coming, and for the second time since I had left Springvale
she took the steep way up to our "Rockport." Had she known what was
going on at home she might have stayed there in spite of her prejudices.

"It's just this way, Mrs. Whately," Judson declared, when he had
formally opened the conference, "it's just this way. With all my efforts
in your behalf, your business interest in the store has been eaten up by
your expenditures. Of course I know you have always lived up to a
certain kind of style whether you had the money or not; and I can
understand, bein' a commercialist, how easy those things go. But that
don't alter the fact that you'll have no more income from the store in a
very few months. I'm planning extensive changes in the Winter for next
Spring, and it'll take all the income. Do you see now?"

"Partly," Mrs. Whately replied faintly.

She was a sweet-spirited, gentle woman. She had been reared in a home of
luxury. Her own home had been guarded by a noble, loving husband, and
her powers of resource had never been called out. Of all the women I
have ever known, she was least fitted to match her sense of honor, her
faith in mankind, and her inexperience and lack of business knowledge
against such an unprincipled, avaricious man as the one who domineered
over her affairs.

Judson had been tricky and grasping in the day of his straightened
circumstances, but he might never have developed into the scoundrel he
became, had prosperity not fallen upon him by chance. Sometimes it is
poverty, and sometimes it is wealth that plays havoc with a man's
character an