require; therefore he proposed this conditional sale as offering
rather better, or at least more evident, security, and he regarded it
in his own mind as practically amounting to the same thing. He was as
sure of his being able to purchase back his own, should he secure the
necessary funds, as he would have been of paying up the mortgage. The
advance price would about twice cover the interest at a goodly rate,
had the affair been conducted on the mortgage basis. Arthur himself
had proposed that, and "I will of course pay for any improvements you
may have made in the mean time," he said. There was nothing in the
least mean or ungenerous about Arthur Carroll. He meant, on the
whole, rather more squarely to his fellow-men than to himself.

Then with the money obtained from the sale of his patrimony he went
to work on his coal-mine. A very trifle of a beginning had been made
on it before the war, so he had not actually to break the first
ground. The previous owner had died bankrupt from lack of capital,
and his minor daughter had inherited it. It was from the minor
daughter that the elder Carroll had purchased it, partly with a view
to assisting the child, who had been left penniless except for the
mine, at the death of her father, who was of a distant branch of
Carroll's own family. With the proceeds of the sale the girl was
supported and educated; then she lost the remainder through the
dishonesty of her guardian. That was the year after young Carroll
began to work the mine. Then he married her. She was a beautiful
girl, and helpless as a flower. He married her without a cent to
support her except the old coal-mine, and he worked as hard and
bravely as a man could. And he prospered, to the utter amazement of
everybody who watched him, and who had prophesied failure from the
start. In four years he was looked upon with respect. People said he
was fast getting rich. He went to the man who had bought the Carroll