h of the
library floor. This led him to one of the long windows. He stopped and
looked out through it across the sloping lawns which surrounded the
house. A low ribbon of glow hung over the edge of the hills which lay to
the west of the town. Silhouetted against it was the ragged line of
roofs and stacks which were the Forsyth Mills. Familiar with them
through years of business association, the little man of law visualized
them now as clearly as though they did not lay wrapped in evening
shadow; he saw the ugly, age-old walls, the glaring brick of the new
additions, the dingy yards, the silver thread of the river and across
that the rows upon rows of tiny houses piled against one another, each
like its neighbor even to the broken pickets surrounding squares of
cinder ground. He knew, although his eyes could not see, that these
yards even now were hung with the lines of everlasting washing, that men
lounged on those back doorsteps and smoked and talked while women worked
within preparing the evening meals. These human beings were machines in
the gigantic industry upon which the House of Forsyth was founded. Did
Madame ever think of them as flesh and blood mortals--like herself?
Cornelius Allendyce smiled at the question; oh, no, the Forsyth
tradition, of which Madame talked, built an impenetrable wall between
her and those toilers.

Staring at the gray hard line of shadow that was the tallest of the
chimneys the man thought how like it was to Madame and old Christopher
Forsyth. His long connection with the family and the family interests
gave the lawyer an intimate understanding of them and all that had
happened to them. And it had been much. Mr. Allendyce himself often
spoke of the "curse" of Gray Manor. Christopher Forsyth and Madame had
had one son, Christopher Junior. Allendyce could recall the elaborate
festivities that had marked the boy's coming of age, the almost royal
pomp of his wedding. Three years after that wedding the young man and
his wife had been drowned while cruising with friends off the coast of
Southern California.

This terrible blow might have crushed old Christopher but for the
toddling youngster who was Christopher the Third. The grandfather and
grandmother shut themselves away in Gray Manor with the one purpose in
life--to bring up Christopher the Third to take his place at the head of
the House of Forsyth.

At this point in his reflections Mr. Allendyce's heart gave a quick
throb of pity--h