As he looked back on it all now, it seemed to him that he had always loved this girl companion of his old-house days. In his boyhood he had accepted her as a part of his daily life just as he had accepted his sister. Those years of his schooling had been careless, thoughtless years, and followed, as they were, by his war experience, they seemed now to have had so small a part in the whole that they scarcely counted at all. His renewed comradeship with Charlie in the army had renewed also, through the letters that Charlie always shared with him, his consciousness of Mary. In the months just passed his love had ripened and become a definite thing, fixed and certain in his own mind and heart as the fact of life itself. He had no more thought of accepting as final Mary's answer than he had of turning the management of the Mill over to Jake Vodell or to Sam Whaley. But still there were things that he must think out. On that favorite hillside spot where he and Charlie had spent so many hours discussing their industrial problems, John faced squarely the questions raised by Mary's "no." Through the chill of the fall twilight John went home to spend the evening with his mother. But he did not speak to her of Mary. He could not, somehow, in the house that was so under the shadow of that hidden thing. His father was still in his room. On his way to his own apartment after his mother had retired, John stopped at his father's door to knock gently and ask if there was anything that he could do. The answer came, "No, I will be all right--let me alone." Later Helen returned from somewhere with McIver. Then John heard McIver leaving and Helen going to her mother for their usual good-night visit. Seeing the light under his door, as she passed, she tapped the panel and called softly that it was tune all good little boys were fast asleep. It was an hour, perhaps, after John had gone to bed that he was awakened by the sound of some one stealing quietly into his room. Against the dim night light in the hall, he caught the outline of an arm and shoulder as the intruder carefully closed the door. Reaching out to the lamp at the head of his bed, he snapped on the light and sprang to his feet. "Father!" "Sh--be careful, John, they will hear you!" Adam Ward's gray face was ghastly with nervous excitement and fear, and he was shaking as with a chill. "No one must know I told you," he whispered, "but the new process is the source of everything we have--the Mill and everything. If it wasn't for my patent rights we would have nothing. You and I would be working in the Mill just like Pete and his boy." John spoke soothingly. "Yes, father, I understand, but it will be all right--I'll take care of it." Adam chuckled. "They're after it. But I've got it all sewed up so tight they can't touch it. That old fool, Pete, was here to feel me out to-day." "Pete--here!" Adam grinned. "While you folks were at church." "But what did he want, father?"