he
interests of those people."

Her color rose, and her pulse quickened. Henry never had talked to
her, except in the merest commonplaces, about his relations with Uncle
Benny; it was a matter in which, she had recognized, they had been
opposed; and since the quarrels between the old friend whom she had
loved from childhood and him, who wished to become now more than a mere
friend to her, had grown more violent, she had purposely avoided
mentioning Uncle Benny to Henry, and he, quite as consciously, had
avoided mentioning Mr. Corvet to her.

"I've known for a good many years," Spearman said reluctantly, "that
Ben Corvet's brain was seriously affected. He recognized that himself
even earlier, and admitted it to himself when he took me off my ship to
take charge of the company. I might have gone with other people then,
or it wouldn't have been very long before I could have started in as a
ship owner myself; but, in view of his condition, Ben made me promises
that offered me most. Afterwards his malady progressed so that he
couldn't know himself to be untrustworthy; his judgment was impaired,
and he planned and would have tried to carry out many things which
would have been disastrous for the company. I had to fight him--for
the company's sake and for my own sake and that of the others, whose
interests were at stake. Your father came to see that what I was doing
was for the company's good and has learned to trust me. But you--you
couldn't see that quite so directly, of course, and you thought I
didn't--like Ben, that there was some lack in me which made me fail to
appreciate him."

"No; not that," Constance denied quickly. "Not that, Henry."

"What was it then, Connie? You thought me ungrateful to him? I
realized that I owed a great deal to him; but the only way I could pay
that debt was to do exactly what I did--oppose him and seem to push
into his place and be an ingrate; for, because I did that, Ben's been a
respected and honored man in this town all these last years, which he
couldn't have remained if I'd let him have his way, or if I told others
why I had to do what I did. I didn't care what others thought about
me; but I did care what you thought; yet if you couldn't see what I was
up against because of your affection for him, why--that was all right
too."

"No, it wasn't all right," she denied almost fiercely, the flush
flooding her cheeks; a throbbing was in her throat which, for an
instant, stopp