It was with this same conviction that he now strove to understand the shutting-down of the furnaces and ore-fields owned by the Minsters, and the threatened lockout in the Thessaly Manufacturing Company’s mills. But it was very difficult to see where dishonesty could come in. The furnaces and ore-supply had been stopped by an order of the pig-iron trust, but of course the owners would be amply compensated for that. The other company’s resolve to reduce wages meant, equally of course, a desire to make up on the pay-list the loss entailed by the closing of the furnaces, which compelled it to secure its raw material elsewhere. Taken by themselves, each transaction was intelligible. But considered together, and as both advised by the same men, they seemed strangely in conflict. What possible reason could the Thessaly Company, for example, have for urging Mrs. Minster to enter a trust, the chief purpose of which was to raise the price of pig-iron which they themselves bought almost entirely? The problem puzzled Reuben. He racked his brain in futile search for the missing clew to this financial paradox. Evidently there was such a clew somewhere; an initial fact which would explain the whole mystery, if only it could be got at. He had for his own satisfaction collected some figures about the Minster business, partly exact, partly estimated, and he had worked laboriously over these in the effort to discover the false quantity which he felt sure was somewhere concealed. But thus far his work had been in vain. Just now a strange idea for the moment fascinated his inclination. It was nothing else than the thought of putting his pride in his pocket--of going to Miss Minster and saying frankly: “I believe you are being robbed. In Heaven’s name, give me a chance to find out, and to protect you if I am right! I shall ask no reward. I shall not even ask ever to see you again, once the rescue is achieved. But oh! do not send me away until then--I pray you that!” While the wild project urged itself upon his mind the man himself seemed able to stand apart and watch this battle of his own thoughts and longings, like an outside observer. He realized that the passion he had nursed so long in silence had affected his mental balance. He was conscious of surprise, almost of a hysterical kind of amusement, that Reuben Tracy should be so altered as to think twice about such a proceeding. Then he fell to deploring and angrily reviling the change that had come over him; and lo! all at once he found himself strangely glad of the change, and was stretching forth his arms in a fantasy of yearning toward a dream figure in creamy-white robes, girdled with a silken cord, and was crying out in his soul, “I love you!”