The north window view hurt still worse. The middle distance was dotted with half a dozen "follies" "for sale," each with its small bunch of workmen's cottages, some empty, some full, alas! and all treeless and grassless under the blazing sun. Far beyond to the right, shading away from green to blue, rose the hills of Widewood--lost Widewood!--hiding other "tied-up capital" and more stranded labor. For scattered through those lovely forests were scores, hundreds, of peasants from across seas, to every separate one of whom the scowling patient in this room, with fierce tears perpetually in his throat, believed he owed explanation and restitution. Garnet!--owned half of Widewood! March's confinement here dated from the night when he had at length unearthed the well-hid truth of how the stately Major had acquired it. No sooner had Ravenel and Garnet got the Land Company into its living grave, than Gamble and Bulger, with Leggett looming mysteriously in their large shadows, forced the Construction Company into liquidation by a kind demand upon Mattox, Crickwater, and Pettigrew for certain call loans of two years' standing, accepted in settlement their shares of the Widewood lands wrested from the Land Company, and then somehow privately induced Garnet to take those cumbersome assets off their hands at a round cash price. That was the day before March had got home and Bulger had cleared out. Gamble had departed much more leisurely. Whenever money was at stake Gamble had the courage of a bear with whelps. Whenever he said, "I can't afford to stay here," it meant that his milk-pail was full and the cow empty. This time it meant he had, as Shotwell put it, "broken the record of the three counties--pulled the wool over Jeff-Jack's eyes;" for he had sold his railroad to a system hostile to the fortunes of Suez. The other half of Widewood was public domain. "Thank Heaven for that!" said March, lying dressed on his bed. "Suez thanks Mr. Ravenel," melodiously responded his mother. Parson Tombs had brought her up here and slipped out again on creaking tiptoe. "Why, mother, it was I made it so in my original plan!" "O my beloved boy, it was in Mr. Ravenel's original plan when he lent your poor father the money to send you to school. I have it on good authority." The son gave a vexed laugh. "O, as to that, why Cornelius Leggett suggested it when----" "John! forbear!" Mrs. March was not prejudiced. She could admit the name of a colored person in a discussion; but _that_ miscreant had lured her trusted Jane to the altar and written back that she was one of the best wives he had had for years.