ind when I turned the corner by my house
and caught sight of Maude, in the front yard, bending bareheaded over a
bed of late flowers which the frost had spared. The evening was sharp,
the dusk already gathering.

"You'll catch cold," I called to her.

She looked up at the sound of my voice.

"They'll soon be gone," she sighed, referring to the flowers. "I hate
winter."

She put her hand through my arm, and we went into the house. The curtains
were drawn, a fire was crackling on the hearth, the lamps were lighted,
and as I dropped into a chair this living-room of ours seemed to take on
the air of a refuge from the vague, threatening sinister things of the
world without. I felt I had never valued it before. Maude took up her
sewing and sat down beside the table.

"Hugh," she said suddenly, "I read something in the newspaper--"

My exasperation flared up again.

"Where did you get that disreputable sheet?" I demanded.

"At the dressmaker's!" she answered. "I--I just happened to see the name,
Paret."

"It's just politics," I declared, "stirring up discontent by
misrepresentation. Jealousy."

She leaned forward in her chair, gazing into the flames.

"Then it isn't true that this poor man, Galligan--isn't that his
name?--was cheated out of the damages he ought to have to keep himself
and his family alive?"

"You must have been talking to Perry or Susan," I said. "They seem to be
convinced that I am an oppressor of the poor.

"Hugh!" The tone in which she spoke my name smote me. "How can you say
that? How can you doubt their loyalty, and mine? Do you think they would
undermine you, and to me, behind your back?"

"I didn't mean that, of course, Maude. I was annoyed about something
else. And Tom and Perry have an air of deprecating most of the
enterprises in which I am professionally engaged. It's very well for them
to talk. All Perry has to do is to sit back and take in receipts from the
Boyne Street car line, and Tom is content if he gets a few commissions
every week. They're like militiamen criticizing soldiers under fire. I
know they're good friends of mine, but sometimes I lose patience with
them."

I got up and walked to the window, and came back again and stood before
her.

"I'm sorry for this man, Galligan," I went on, "I can't tell you how
sorry. But few people who are not on the inside, so to speak, grasp the
fact that big corporations, like the Railroad, are looked upon as fair
game for every kin