He reread it a dozen times in the course of the evening. It was so like the child--the perverse, affectionate child--that Leila was. “_I wish you were my big brother._” The sentence had slipped from her flying pen thoughtlessly, no doubt, but it gave Bruce a twinge. Shep did not know; Leila did not know! and yet for both of these children of Franklin Mills he felt a fondness that was beyond ordinary friendship. Shep could never be, in the highest sense, a companion of his father; Mills no doubt loved Leila, but he loved her without understanding. Her warm, passionate heart, the very fact that she and Shep were the children of Franklin Mills made life difficult for them. Either would have been happier if they had not been born into the Mills caste. The Mills money and the Mills position were an encumbrance against which more or less consciously they were in rebellion. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN I It was ten days later that a communication from the Laconia War Memorial Association gave warning that the stipulations for the contesting architects were being altered, and in another week Bruce received the supplemental data sent out to all the contestants. The amount to be expended had been increased by an unexpected addition to the private subscriptions. In one of his first fits of homesickness Bruce had subscribed for the Laconia Examiner to keep in touch with affairs in his native town. The paper printed with a proud flourish the news of the augmentation of the fund. One hundred thousand dollars had been contributed through a New York trust company by “a citizen” whose identity for good and sufficient reasons was not to be disclosed. The trust company’s letter as quoted in the Examiner recited that the donation was from a “patriotic American who, recognizing the fine spirit in which Laconia had undertaken the memorial and the community’s desire that it should be an adequate testimony to the valor and sacrifice of American youth, considered it a high privilege to be permitted to assist.” Mills! Though the Laconia newspaper was evidently wholly at sea as to the identity of the contributor, Bruce was satisfied that Mills was the unknown donor. And he resented it. The agreeable impression left by Mills the evening they discussed the plans was dispelled by this unwarranted interference. Bruce bitterly regretted having taken Mills into his confidence. Mills’s interest had pleased him, but he had never dreamed that the man might feel moved to add to the attractiveness of the contest by a secret contribution to the fund. He felt strongly moved to abandon the whole thing and but for the embarrassment of explaining himself to Freeman he would have done so. But the artist in him prevailed. Mills had greatly broadened the possibilities of the contest and in a few days Bruce fell to work with renewed enthusiasm.