The young man walked swiftly homeward; the blackness of the darkening pine forest was nothing to the gloom of his soul. He spent long hours of the night and many of the next day striving to state the case in a way that would justify himself in the girl's eyes. In his extremity he went to Lawyer Ed for comfort. "What could I do?" he asked. "What would you have done in that case?" Lawyer Ed scratched his head. "I really don't know what a fellow's to do now, Rod, that's the truth, when he's doing business for a skinflint like Sandy Graham. You just have to do as he wants or jump the job, that's a fact." But Roderick did not need to be told that his chief would have jumped any job no matter how big, rather than hurt a poor weakling like Billy Perkins. So those were dark days for Roderick in spite of all the brilliant prospects opening ahead of him. He could not tell which was harder to bear, his father's perfect faith in him, despite all evidence to the contrary, or the girl's look of reproach, despite all his attempts to set himself right in her eyes. He was learning, too, that not till he had lost her good opinion did he realise that he wanted it more than anything else in the world. But there were compensations. When he finished his business he received a letter of congratulation from Mr. Kent, and a commission to do some important work for him. He found some solace, too, in the bright approving eyes of Leslie Graham. Her perfect confidence in him furnished a little balm to his wounded feelings. Certainly she was not so exacting, for she cared not at all about the Perkinses and all the other troublesome folk on the Jericho Road. CHAPTER XI "THE LANDSKIP DARKEN'D" Roderick's work allowed him little chance for brooding over his worries, for Lawyer Ed left more and more to him as the days went on. Not that he did any less, but the temperance campaign was on again, all racial and religious prejudices forgotten, in the glory of the fight. Lawyer Ed was quite content that his young partner should let him do all the public speaking, and so neither side was offended at the young man's careful steering in a middle course. Roderick himself hated it, but there seemed no other way, on the road he was determined to follow.