show?" he asked.

She told him.

"Oh, him!" he exclaimed. "He's dead against my policy. He'll make a
mess."

"They say he's doing that," she remarked.

He asked her a series of questions which she tried to answer frankly, and
he came to know that the trouble between the two towns, which, after the
Orange funeral and his own disaster had subsided, was up again; that the
railways were in difficulties; that there had been several failures in
the town; that one of the banks--the Regent-had closed its doors; that
Felix Marchand, having recovered from the injury he had received from
Gabriel Druse on the day of the Orange funeral, had gone East for a month
and had returned; that the old trouble was reviving in the mills, and
that Marchand had linked himself with the enemies of the group
controlling the railways hitherto directed by himself.

For a moment after she had answered his questions, there was strong
emotion in his face, and then it cleared.

He reached out a hand towards her. How eagerly she clasped it! It was
cold, and hers was so warm and firm and kind.

"True friend o' mine!" he said with feeling. "How wonderful it is that
somehow it all doesn't seem to matter so much. I wonder why? I wonder--
Tell me about yourself, about your life," he added abruptly, as though it
had been a question he had long wished to ask. In the tone was a quiet