The sensation now to be accounted for was not the weakness but the sudden recovery of Great Midwestern and Galt’s statement explained it. So they were anxious to spread their news. It was true. Galt had timed his stroke unerringly. Everyone was amazed to see how little Great Midwestern stock was actually for sale when a buying hand appeared. That was because so much of the selling had been fictitious. The stock closed that day at one-hundred-and-fifty and never while Galt lived was it so low again. The feet of many winds ran rapidly apart and the storm collapsed. vi That evening, for the first time in many weeks, Galt had dinner with the family. We do not see each other change and grow old as a continuous process. It is imperceptible that way. But as one looks at a tree that has been in one’s eye all the time and says with surprise, “Why, the leaves have turned!” so suddenly we look at a person we have seen every day and say, “How he has changed!” some association of place or act causing a vivid recollection to arise in contrast. We had all seen Galt coming and going. I had been with him constantly. Yet now as he sat there at table we remembered him only as he was the last time before this at dinner, making a scene because there was never anything he liked to eat and the cook put cheese in the potatoes. The difference was distressing. He was old and world-weary. He ate sparingly, complained of nothing and was so absent that when anyone spoke to him he started and must have the words repeated. Natalie alone succeeded in drawing his interest. She had spent the day at Moonstool. This name had been provisionally bestowed upon the country place, because it happened to be the local name of the mountain, and then became permanent in default of agreement on any other. Work there had been progressing rapidly. The house itself was finished; the principal apartments were ready to be occupied. The surroundings of course were in confusion. Steam drills were going all the time. Roadways were blasting through solid rock. The landscape was in turmoil. “But you could live there now,” said Natalie, “if you didn’t mind the noise,” closing a long recital, to which Galt had listened thoughtfully. “We might have the wedding there,” he said. His suggestion produced a ghastly silence. Mrs. Galt tried to turn it away. Galt was alert. “What have I stepped on now?” he wanted to know. “Suffering Moses! It ain’t safe for me to walk around in my own house. What’s the matter?” “Nothing,” said Natalie. “Yes, there is. What is it?” When he couldn’t be put off any longer Vera said, quietly: “My engagement to Lord Porteous is broken.” “Why?” asked Galt, astonished. “That’s the first I’ve heard of it.” “No matter why,” said Vera. “Let’s not talk about it.” He looked into their faces severally. His expression was utterly wretched and they avoided it. He guessed the reason why,--made it perhaps even worse than it was.