“You say Wynn--you say her brother wouldn't speak to you,” he faltered. “Now, I wonder if--I--I wonder--You see, I hardly knew what to think when she popped in here like she did that day. What she said was all so jumbled and roundabout that, as I wrote you, it was more the way she _acted_ that made me draw my conclusions than her exact words on _any_ direct line.” “Well, how did she _act?_” Fred inquired, despondently. “Why, if you _will_ know--” old Simon was growing red in the face. “I had no idea of telling it even to _you_, but the truth is she up and kissed me--so she did! She gave me a smack right on the cheek!” “She _kissed_ you?” “That's what she did, by gum! And Toby come in just in time to make her let go of my neck. So, you see, after I thought it all over, why, I thought that maybe she regarded me as being a kin to her in some shape or other, and meant that as a sort o' hint of what she was willing to do.” At this moment a voice was heard in the corridor. It was Wynn Dearing's, and he was asking for Fred. “I wonder if he's come here to pick a row,” old Simon asked, as his startled eyes bore down on the face of his son. “If he has, I reckon we can accommodate him. I ain't no fighter, but you are my own flesh and blood, and considering the time you've been away, and what you have accomplished, he hain't treated you right. Toby”--raising his voice and going to the door and looking out--“show that fellow back here. Nobody ain't hiding in this shebang, I am here to say, and if folks ain't satisfied all round--clean all round--why--” But Wynn Dearing was brushing past the old man through the narrow doorway, his face pale, his hand extended to Fred. “I have done you a great wrong, old man,” he said, in a shaking voice, “and I have come to beg your pardon.” “Oh, that's all right, Wynn,” Fred gasped, in surprise. “I am sure you have treated me no worse than I deserve.” “Oh yes, I have, Fred. I have worked against you ever since you left, and I now find that you are wholly innocent of what I accused you of. Let me talk it over with your father. Margaret is waiting at my office to see you. I promised I'd send you to her.” As if in a dream, Fred hastened out of the bank and went down to Dearing's office. No one was in the front, but he found Margaret in the back room standing at a window, looking out. She turned as he entered and gave him both her hands. “Oh, I'm so glad--so glad!” she cried, and he saw tears on her lashes, and the handkerchief she held in one of her hands was damp. “Oh, Fred, we have all treated you so badly, so cruelly, so unjustly, when you were striving so hard! A great mistake was made. If I had known what I now know when we met in New York, I would never have treated you as I did. You were thinking of one thing and I of another.” “I don't understand,” he said, groping for her meaning, his big, honest eyes dilating.