As it is written that a prophet is not without honor save in his own country and in his own house, it is deemed just that such matters as have to do with the coming to pass of Aunt Kate’s prediction concerning her brother Obadiah should be duly set forth herein that they may be not suppressed through local jealousy.

Obadiah received Virginia’s letter late one afternoon as he was about to return home. He did not immediately read it, but carried it with him that he might enjoy it in the greater seclusion of his own domicile. What took place thereafter is best described in the words of a confidential communication from Serena to Ike. “Dat ole man is er ra’in’ an’ er ta’in’ ’roun’ in dyar jes lak sumpin done stung ’im. It’s de badness er wo’kin’ out. De hot fiah o’ to’ment singe ’im an’ de cont’ary spi’it cry aloud fo’ he’p lak er lamb afo’ er ragin’ lion in de wilde’ness.”

Ike received these tidings concerning the spiritual pass of his employer with an interest that lacked the kindly sympathy which should be extended to a brother struggling with the forces of evil. He made answer in a casual manner, “Mr. Devil done run dat ole man to ea’th er long time ergo. He jes er settin’ back, lafin sof’ to hisse’f, er watchin’ de houn’s er scratchin’ an’ er clawin’. He gwine dig ’im out presently. Ah ’spects dat de ’pointed hour is at han’.”

At dinner Obadiah was in a surly mood which he vented upon Serena by making cutting criticisms concerning the food and service. She received his comments in silence, storing them up until a more propitious hour of reckoning. Meanwhile she solaced herself by certain outbursts at Ike.

Unconscious of impending disaster, the chauffeur had seated himself adjacent to the range. Here he rested from the labors of the day, having in view a tempting repast of chicken and sweet potatoes. He endeavored by agreeable conversation, to make smooth, or grease if you wish, its pathway to his stomach. “Miss Sereny, yo’all is er movin’ mighty peart dis evenin’,” he remarked in tuneful tones, as the old negress hastily re-entered the kitchen, severely wounded by a barbed dart of Obadiah’s temper.

She whirled upon him and snapped, “Shet up dat big mouf. Yer ’minds me o’ er ole alligator er settin’ thar workin’ yer jaws an’ ain’ say nothin’.”

A glance at Serena’s face showed Ike that storm signals were unmistakably flying. He thought to assuage the tempest by the tender of assistance. “Caint ah he’p you, Miss Sereny? Ah ’spects dat yo’all is plum ti’ed er wo’kin’ in dis yere hot kitchen.”

She fixed him with smoldering eyes. “He’p me, he’p me,” she repeated indignantly. “De onlies way er lazy nocount lummox lak yo’all kin he’p me is by er movin’ yer triflin’ carcass out o’ ma kitchen stid o’ layin’ ’round ma stove lak er houn’ dawg. Lif youse’f off dat chair, boy.”Ike, the indirect victim of Virginia’s letter, removed himself in haste from his comfortable corner and retired to the cool steps of the back stoop, to allow the domestic cyclone to blow itself out before attempting again to procure his evening’s nourishment.

Obadiah had an uncomfortable night. A remembrance of the lance like thrusts of Aunt Kate, which, in the name of his daughter, had so cruelly lacerated him in spite of his armor of egotism, drove sleep away. Tossing upon a bed of discomfort, he heard the clocks toll out each passing hour until, weary and tired eyed, he left his bed, ill prepared to face the burdens and perplexities of the new day.

At breakfast, Serena served Obadiah efficiently; but her attitude was hostile. The wounds of the proceeding night were yet raw. When he had eaten, she faced him sternly and demanded, “When is yo’all ’spectin’ Miss Virginy is er gwine come home?”

“One of these days,” he answered with indifference.

She was not to be thus summarily dismissed. “Dat day bettah be er comin’ mighty quick,” she threatened. “Ah is er gittin ti’ed er waitin’ ’roun’ yere. Presen’ly, ah gwine pack ma duds an’ go whar she at.”

“You attend to your own business,” he snarled petulantly.

His irritation was an elixir of strength to her. Hands on hips she gazed defiantly at him. “Ma business is whar Miss Virginy is. Ah ain’ promise Miss Elinor dat ah tek care o’ yo’all. Ah gives ma word to watch dat chil’. Ef you is er countin’ on me er stayin’ in dis yere house yo’all bettah git dat gal back quick. Ah ain’ got no time fo’ no man so se’fish dat ’is own kin folk done turn again ’im.”

Before the righteous indignation of his own servant Obadiah fled from his dining room, speechless with indignation.

He entered his office at nine o’clock. The sound of Mr. Jones’s typewriter should have greeted him and he should have perceived Kelly recording profits in the great ledgers. This morning their seats were vacant. There was a lonesomeness about the place distasteful to the manufacturer. His sleepless night and the altercation with Serena had caused him to develop a fit of indigestion which was not allayed by the lack of punctuality on the part of his heretofore punctual subordinates.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway, also happy laughter. Tardy employees approached their work joyously, not stealthily, as is the normal custom of such miscreants. No cheery smile of cordial welcome mantled Obadiah’s face. No well turned quip, to amuse his minions in their hours of toil, was upon his lip. He sternly awaited the coming of these frivolous and delinquent workers.

As Mr. Jones and Kelly entered, there were glad smiles upon their faces. There was something different about the stenographer. There was a marked outward change in him. His clear complexion proclaimed good health. He carried himself as if in complete control of his muscles. In place of awkwardness had come a distinct grace of carriage.

There were more subtle changes in Mr. Jones, also. A clearness of eye, a steadiness of gaze and a quiet self-confidence were a novelty to his friends of other days.

But, strangest of all, the private secretary’s old time beauty was marred by a discoloration of the right eye, poorly disguised with powder, by several small cuts upon his face and by certain bandages on his hands.

Obadiah gave Mr. Jones a sweeping glance which failed to grasp details essential to a clear understanding of a subordinate. “What do you mean, loafing in here at noon?” he demanded most inaccurately, “I pay you to get here at nine o’clock. What does this mean?” The cruel glance of Obadiah’s eye pierced the optic of Mr. Jones as if to plumb the depths of his soul and wrest his innermost secrets forth to be exposed, naked and ashamed, in the pitiless light of publicity.

The mill owner’s efforts to read the stenographer’s mind through the eye were futile. Had he succeeded, the result of his research would have shocked him. Believing himself to be peeping into the eyes of a turtle dove, he would have become aware that he might, with greater safety, have attempted to stare down the baleful glare of a Bengal tiger.

Lacking in the ability to read the human mind, Obadiah could not know that Fate, seeking a recipient for her favor, had plucked a peaceful soul from in front of a typewriter and made it fierce.

Had the manufacturer been able to view Mr. Jones’s mind as the scenes of a movie, he would have beheld thrilling events taking place upon the previous evening. He would have observed his stenographer simply arrayed in trunks, socks and shoes, with eight ounce gloves laced upon his hands, give battle for the feather-weight championship of the Fifth ward, before a multitude of wildly excited male citizens.

Had Obadiah by similar means reviewed the mind of Kelly, he would have watched the battle as through the eyes of a second. He would have seen, beneath the electric lights, the muscles of the little fighting men play, panther like, under the healthy pink of their skins. If one drop of red blood remained in his anÆmic old body, the mill owner would have thrilled as Mr. Jones, his arms playing smoothly as well oiled connecting rods, treading upon his toes softly as a cat, advanced, retreated and side stepped, ever warily studying the face of his opponent. He would have perceived that his stenographer ducked and dodged with incredible swiftness, his gloved hands playing always to feign, to ward and to deliver blows which resounded with the thud of leather against quivering flesh. Obadiah’s eyes would have recognized the rich red of blood smearing the marble of human flesh, and he would have tingled at the excitement of the spectators when, rising from their seats, they tumultuously applauded the giver of a lucky blow.

Through five gruelling rounds of fighting the manufacturer would have followed the fortunes of his private secretary until that final moment when, panting and heaving, he stood over the prone form of his adversary, counting the motions of the referee’s hands, whose voice could not be heard above the thunderous applause which acclaimed him victor.

But no picture of this battle could have told Obadiah that in the moment of triumph the spirit of Mr. Jones was reborn; that from the building, into the portals of which he had been almost dragged by Kelly, he had come forth a red-blooded fighting man whose gore had mixed with that of his antagonist.

Ignorant of these happenings, Obadiah angrily awaited an answer from his unpunctual servants.

The smile had faded from the face of Mr. Jones at Obadiah’s rough greeting. He failed to behave in accord with the best usages among private secretaries. Squaring his shoulders, he took a deep breath, thereby greatly straining a gusset only recently let into the back of his vest. Suddenly he shoved his head forward. As his face advanced, it changed into an ugly countenance with a nasty eye, such an one as would make its recipient ill at ease. This was Mr. Jones’s fighting face, developed with care under the kindly advice of Kelly. Sporting characters considered it a valuable asset.

Mr. Jones’s expression startled Obadiah. For years, when at a loss for words or thoughts, he had studied the lamb like face of his stenographer. That timid look was gone now, replaced by a countenance which had borrowed coldness from the glance of a rattlesnake and combined it with a grizzly bear’s cruelty of aspect. To Obadiah it spoke of arson, of the assassination of capitalists, of the proletariat running mad. He quailed before it.

“Where do you get that noon stuff?” snarled Mr. Jones.

Obadiah turned towards the clock as if to place the blame for any misstatements of time upon that instrument. The hands pointed to five minutes past nine thereby also indicating their owner to be a liar.

Again Mr. Jones spoke. Roughness replaced refinement.

“For five years I have worked overtime for you, two or three afternoons a week, sometimes fifteen minutes, sometimes an hour. I also put in many an evening and some Sundays for you. I never received a word of thanks for it. Now, because I am delayed by important business and come in five minutes late, you put up a squeal as if I’d stepped on your sore corn. Say, what kind of a cheap skate are you?” the stenographer roared in conclusion.

Obadiah ignored the question in haughty but uneasy silence.

“You think so much of your ugly old self that you can’t think of anything else. But believe me, everybody else has got your number and they’re wasting no time loving you. Say,” growled Mr. Jones so roughly that Obadiah jumped, “have you a friend in the world?”

For an instant it appeared that the manufacturer contemplated a hurried retreat from his own office, but the pugnacious stenographer barred the way.

“You hain’t,” announced Mr. Jones ungrammatically but emphatically, producing a gigantic roll of currency from his pocket. It was his share of the fight receipts, and, although the denominations averaged low, it bulked large to the surprised eyes of Obadiah. Mr. Jones shook the money in the face of his employer. “See that?” he inquired, as if suspecting that his employer suffered from failing eyesight. “I don’t care to hold it too near to you or you might try to pinch it.”

Obadiah viewed the roll of bills with a repugnance astounding in him.

“I had to work to get that money, last night,” Mr. Jones continued. “It wasn’t the easy kind of money that you pull down. But that isn’t the point. Kelly and I have bought a gymnasium up the street. We intended to treat you fair–to give you full notice so that you could fill our places before we left. But as you’ve had to be a little meaner than usual this morning, I think we’ll bid you good-bye right now. How about it, Kelly?”

“I say we will,” agreed that successful trainer with emphasis, and he and the fighter abruptly left the room.

Obadiah closed the door of the office with a resounding slam behind his departing staff and, taking a bunch of unopened letters from Mr. Jones’s former place of labor, he bore them into his own lair. As he sank down behind his desk he thumbed them over and, selecting one, opened and read the paper it contained. It was a formal order from the State Board of Health forbidding the further discharge of waste from the dye house at his mill into the Lame Moose River. As the manufacturer grasped the import of the document, his face purpled with rage and the paper shook in his hands. Finally he petulantly cast it aside and groaned aloud at a twinge of indigestion. Dropping back in his chair he took Virginia’s letter from his pocket and re-read it. “I’ve had bad luck ever since she left,” he growled. “Things don’t break right. I can’t keep my mind on my business. She must come home.” Unhooking his telephone, he asked Hezekiah Wilkins to come to him.

Hezekiah responded, smiling pleasantly. “Good morning,” he exclaimed. “What has happened to the boys? Not sick, I hope.”

“I fired them,” Obadiah rapped. “They were too fresh around here and I let them go.” His anger and resentment displayed itself. “They are no good. I wouldn’t give them recommendations as dog catchers.”

“Hump,” ejaculated Hezekiah. “Both at once? It leaves you short handed.”

Obadiah invited the attention of his attorney to business by handing him the order of the Board of Health.

Hezekiah read the document with care and, returning it to the manufacturer, gazed at the ceiling reflectively.

“Well, what do you think of it?” Obadiah’s manner was short.

“I have been expecting it,” the lawyer replied with calmness. “What else could you expect? You are ruining the water that people have to drink.”

“I can’t be forced. They won’t drive me,” Obadiah maintained with his usual obstinacy.

“They’ll drive you into court fast enough, if you don’t obey that order,” Hezekiah warned him with a chuckle.

“That’s just where I want to be. It’s up to you to develop a plan to flim-flam that bunch of fool doctors. You’re losing your ‘pep’ or you’d have worked out something before this,” sneered Obadiah.

“Perhaps I am losing my ‘pep,’” Hezekiah mimicked, and his eyes flashed as he went on. “I have enough mental alertness left to advise you not to bite off your nose to spite your face.”

Obadiah flushed angrily but controlled his temper. “Listen,” he snarled, “while I tell you what I pay you to tell me. The Lame Moose is a navigable stream, isn’t it?”

Hezekiah nodded, his eyes dancing with amusement.

Obadiah frowned at his attorney and continued, “We’ll raise a federal question and get the case into the U. S. Courts and with dilatory pleas, continuances and appeals it will take years before a final decision is handed down. How’s that?”

Hezekiah laughed. “As your legal adviser, I can’t approve it. The waste from the dye-house at your mill is spoiling the water that some thousands of people have to drink. There is a simple remedy open to you but they have none. Common justice demands that you consider the rights of these beings.” The attorney turned loose his oratorical voice. “Common justice demands it, sir.”

The manufacturer flushed and shifted uneasily. Quarrelsome as he was, he could not afford a break with this man.

Hezekiah relapsed into a careful study of the metal cornice over the way.

“Think it over. Think about it,” snapped Obadiah after a moment’s silence. “You may be able to catch my point of view. I have another subject which I want to discuss with you–an embarrassing personal matter.”

Hezekiah gave him a covert glance but immediately resumed inspection of the metal work across the street.

“It’s about my daughter,” continued Obadiah. “I have a letter from her which I wish you to read.”

Hezekiah perused Virginia’s letter with great care and attention. “Did she write that?” he asked abruptly, as he returned the communication.

“It’s in my daughter’s handwriting but I suspect that my sister Kate may have had a hand in it. Virginia never wrote such a letter to me before. It is an unusual letter.”

“Yes, it is an unusual letter,” Hezekiah agreed. There was merriment in his eyes but otherwise he presented the serious aspect befitting a counsellor in the presence of a client. “It is an implied threat to sever domestic relations. Such counsel as I give should have in contemplation the facts which led up to this–ahem–veiled ultimatum.”

This reasonable request embarrassed Obadiah greatly; but after some hesitation he explained the circumstances under which Virginia had left home as the act of a defiant, headstrong girl.

“Dear me, an exceedingly unfortunate matter,” exclaimed Hezekiah, as if astonished at the revelation. Therein his manner partook of deceit, as Hennie had favored him so often with the details of the matter, gathered from Virginia herself and more completely, through Carrie, from Serena, that he knew them by heart. The lawyer went on, “The adjustment of such family differences requires tact–the utmost tact and diplomacy.”

The happenings of the morning had sorely inflamed Obadiah’s indigestion. As he repeated his woes to the attorney, remembrances of the lonely hours he had spent since the girl’s departure came to him and he believed himself a sadly ill-used man. Miserable in body and spirit, he flamed into tempestuous rebellion at the mild measures proposed by his legal adviser.

“Tact and diplomacy the devil!!” he exploded. “I’ll use force, if necessary. She is my daughter, isn’t she?”

Hezekiah gravely conceded Obadiah’s claim of paternity.

“The law gives me some control of her?”

“As an unmarried woman, you have certain rights over her,” Hezekiah admitted.

“Well then, I want her back,” bellowed Obadiah, the notes of his voice getting higher as the intensity of his feeling increased. “You go and get her and make her come home.”

“Did you have in mind legal proceedings to compel your daughter to return under your roof?” inquired Hezekiah in a suave manner, in marked contrast to the bluster of his employer.

“It doesn’t make any difference how you do it. Kidnap her for all I care. What I want is to get her back,” the mill owner stormed.

“Has it occurred to you, that in such matters care must be taken to avoid a serious rupture of those affectionate relations which, after all, are the basis of the home and the natural tie between a father and daughter?” Hezekiah suggested quietly.

Obadiah’s face was swollen with passion, his obstinacy written deep in it. “She must come home,” he proclaimed. “I want her. I’m tired of living alone. You go and make her come back.”

The smooth shaven countenance of the lawyer hardened. His usual good-humored expression melted into one of resolution as he said with great calmness, “I have thought, sometimes, Obadiah, that you fail to display a clear conception of an attorney’s duties.”

“What?”

“You don’t appreciate the scope of my employment.”

“What has that got to do with my daughter?”

“It has this. I do not conceive it my duty to force your daughter to return to your home against her wishes.”

“You refuse to obey my instructions?” Obadiah almost screamed, throwing discretion to the winds in the tumult of his wrath.

“Yes, I refuse,” answered the lawyer, leaping to his feet and talking down at his employer. “I refuse,” he repeated in a voice in which passion found no place, “as I have always refused when you would have seduced me into doing an unjust act. There are questions upon which fair minds may differ. Men of honor may argue for the side in which they believe or have been retained. From divers contentions, strongly maintained, comes the bright star of right, shining clear, in its purity, above the storm clouds of litigation. But, Your Hon–” Hezekiah paused and began anew–“But, sir, there are fundamental questions involving moral law upon which right minded men must agree.”

“What’s this tirade got to do with me?” Obadiah demanded.Hezekiah silenced the mill owner with a gesture of great dignity. “Never interrupt counsel in the midst of argument,” he protested, absently. “Undoubtedly you will be afforded ample time to present your own views.” He paused, blinking nervously. The interruption had disturbed his train of thought, but in a moment he continued. “At stated periods, prudent merchants take trial balances and invoices that they may know the condition of their business. It is likewise well for men at times to take account of their relations with their associates. It is my purpose to do that now, Obadiah Dale.” In Hezekiah’s eyes was a far away look now. “It’s nearly thirty years since I entered your employ–thirty years, Obadiah, the cream of my life. Its period of highest power I have given to you. My life must be judged by my accomplishments for you. You and I alone know what part my judgment has had in the development of your great business. As a young man, I liked you, Obadiah. I admired your energy and perseverance and that combativeness which made you give battle in open competition for new fields of commercial activity. Success came to you in a measure permitted to but few, and the tremendous power of wealth accompanied it. Thoughts come to me of your wife, that fair rose of the Southland, who not only brought sunshine into your own house but spread it among all those who were privileged to know her. In her you were a twice blessed man. A daughter was born to you, the image of her mother, and so were you thrice blessed.”

Hezekiah’s face became stern. “I have tried to judge you fairly at the bar of my heart, Obadiah. Old friendship has pleaded for you. Unhappiness over the loss of your wife may have swayed you. Yet, something tells me that you were always the man that you have been of late, concealing the evil in you that you might the better court success. At any rate, there has been a gradual outward change in you until here and now”–Hezekiah was very grave–“I impeach you before the high court of my heart for divers crimes and offenses, treasonable in their nature, against the good will and happiness of your fellowmen.”

The prisoner at the bar gave a start, possibly remembering that the historical punishment for treason was the headsman’s axe.

“You have hardened, Obadiah,” the lawyer continued relentlessly, “until you have grown as icy cold as the winter hills of your native lands. You have become cruel and rapacious in your business dealings. Of late years your commercial pathway is strewn with the wrecks of enterprises, which in no sense affected your own safety but which you have ruined through a sheer desire to dominate, a naked lust for power. Controlled by greed and avarice, no generous thought for your fellowmen actuates you. Steeped in your own selfishness, you sit in this room like–” shaking a forefinger at Obadiah the attorney hesitated, seeking a fitting condemnatory simile. Suddenly he concluded–“like a fat hog,” and struck the desk of the alleged swine such a thump that the pork jumped.

“Your memory will tell you how many times I have blocked your devilish schemes by convincing you that, if persisted in, the anti-trust laws must land you behind prison bars.”Hezekiah in the pose of a stout statue of liberty, thrust up his right arm and clasped his left hand to his breast. He fixed accusing eyes upon the manufacturer and cried in a big voice, “If the world knew as much about you as I do, I am not so sure but they’d incarcerate you under the first law of nature–self-preservation.”

“Hush!” Obadiah paled visibly and with great nervousness viewed the open transom.

Hezekiah leveled an arraigning hand at his employer. “Your actions should be such that you could rest in equanimity while they are cried aloud in the market places. The hour of reckoning is at hand, Obadiah. You believe yourself invincible. Blinded by a curtain of obstinacy you have not read your destiny. I tear it aside and expose your dark future. Your daughter, beautiful and affectionate, filled, as was her mother, with thoughts of others, discovers your true character and, turning from you, prefers the peace of a good conscience amidst humbler surroundings to a home of wealth in your company. She leaves you–alone.”

Obadiah winced.

Hezekiah returned to his task with renewed vigor. “This morning your personal staff–men who have been with you for years–separate from you. I have no hesitation in assuming that they departed rankling beneath injustice. They leave you–alone. Now your attorney”–Hezekiah’s voice was filled with feeling–“your adviser for years, tenders his resignation rather than to be a party to enforcing your selfish demands against your own daughter. He leaves you–alone.”Stunned by this unexpected shot, Obadiah appeared to shrink in his chair.

Highly pleased at the effect and sound of his own words, Hezekiah seized upon the order of the Board of Health and, shaking it in the face of the mill owner, waxed ever more eloquent. Floating away upon the wings of his own fervid oratory, he continued in ringing tones.

“The keen eye of this great Commonwealth has found you out. Now does its strong right arm, the law, reach forth to protect the weak and restrain the strong. In ardent pursuit of evil it draws ever nearer and nearer, until at last it embraces even the waste–”

Hezekiah stopped short. A look of horror, loathing and disgust swept his countenance. He was inexpressibly shocked at the extraordinary conclusion to which his simile hastened.

To Obadiah, the repugnance in Hezekiah’s face depicted antipathy towards himself. For years the attorney had been the manufacturer’s one friend. He had admired the lawyer’s learning and leaned upon his judgment. For years he had known that words were playthings in his legal adviser’s mouth; but that look was too much. The aversion and detestation displayed crushed the mill owner. Humbled to the dust he reviewed the calamities which Hezekiah had so ably painted. With due allowance for rhetorical exaggeration, they frightened him. He must save Hezekiah to pilot him through the darkness.

Sick and weary and miserable but above all else lonely, Obadiah arose from his desk and confronted the lawyer. “Hezekiah, you will not leave me?” he begged, in pitiful humiliation, his anger gone.

The placid Hezekiah was shaken to the depths of his soul at the catastrophe which had befallen him. Vain of his oratorical ability, he regarded his address to Obadiah as a worthy effort until his final bull. Such slips are remembered by one’s professional brethren until the end of one’s life. He took his grievance out on the abased Obadiah.

“I’m tired,” he growled, “tired of your greed and selfishness, tired of your confounded pigheadedness and the continual scrap in which you live. You’re old, Obadiah. I bet you ten dollars that the hearse is in use which will haul you to the cemetery.”

Obadiah shuddered and displayed no disposition to take the wager.

Hezekiah went on testily. “You worry about money until every one hates and despises you. It’s bad for my reputation to work for you–to be caught in your company. I have saved enough to keep me comfortable until I die and I’m going to take it easy. I want to quit fighting law suits and go to compromising.” A glint of his usual humor flashed in Hezekiah’s eyes. “If you’d let me compromise your cases, I might stay.”

Obadiah made a quick motion as of consent.

Hezekiah viewed his shaking employer with great severity. “You must prove your conversion by your works,” he rapped. “You’ve got to show me.”

“What should I do, Hezekiah?” the manufacturer, looking helpless and old, begged. “Give me the benefit of your advice.”“Do?” snapped Hezekiah petulantly. “Decide how you think a thing ought to be done and do the opposite. You’re always wrong.”

“Please be specific, Hezekiah.”

At the word “please,” the lawyer started in surprise. In a moment he growled, “Compromise. Learn to consider the rights and wishes of other people. The compromise is a most valuable instrument in bringing about domestic happiness,” and with this sage advice, Hezekiah, the bachelor, left his employer.

Stricken low by physical disorder and verbal assaults, it was a day of gloomy forebodings to Obadiah. After Hezekiah’s oration, the path ahead, usually certain and clear to him, seemed beset with obstacles and lined with eyes of hatred.

When he went home that night there seemed to be a stoop in his usually erect carriage and a deep anxiety dwelt in his eyes. Hardly touching his dinner, he sat through it, in his dining room, plunged in thought.

Serena marked the change in the behavior of her employer with great interest. Returning to the kitchen, she told Ike, “Mr. Devil done sna’ah dat ole man wid er bait o’ shinin’ gol’. Now he gwine hawg tie ’im wid hot chains outen de fu’nace o’ to’ment so dat he kin tote ’im to de aige o’ de bottomless pit an’ cas’ ’im into de fiah an’ brimstone. Dat ole man is er strivin’ mighty fie’ce to git loose. He’s er gnawin’ off er leg to git outen de sn’ah, as de hot i’on burns ’im an’ de brimstone smoke choke ’im.”

The chauffeur, being for the moment in high favor, was enjoying a piece of pie as a fitting appetizer for his later dinner. “He ain’ lif’ up his voice in prah or mek no sign er tall,” responded the youth, giving close attention to the pastry and but little heed to the demoniacal trapping going on in the neighborhood.

“Dey’s er fightin’ ete’nally, boy,” explained Serena with scorn.

Ike rolled his eyes, exposing large areas of white until they rested upon the woman. “Ain’ you mek er mistake, Miss Sereny?” he suggested respectfully. “Ain’ you mean infe’nally?”

“Look yere, boy,” she retorted with great dignity, “ah ain’ er astin’ no trash lak yo’all to teach me nothin’. Ah gits ma ’ligion f’om de good book in de chu’ch house. Min’ you’ own business.”

Obadiah retired early and again tossed backwards and forwards through long hours. Hezekiah had indeed torn aside a concealing veil from the manufacturer’s life. Obadiah was not a man given to introspection, but, for the first time in years, the words of his attorney had forced it upon him. Tonight his boasted accomplishments were nothing, while episodes which he would have gladly forgotten loomed large. Above all else a great loneliness and fear of the future crushed him.

In this hour of deepest humility, recollections of his wife and the far away days of his married life came to him. Sweet and tender memories these, of occurrences almost forgotten. He softened to them, and moments followed when it was as if the spirit of Elinor Dale had crossed the span of years and labored with the troubled soul of the selfish, obstinate, purse-proud old rich man until at last, Obadiah–slept in peace.

When he appeared in the morning, a change had taken place in him. There was strength and decision in his face; but it seemed as if the lines of cruelty and obstinacy were altered and smoothed away as the ruts and tracks upon a sandy beach after a great storm.