"Something has happened, Ben. What is it?" I broke into a laugh. "Only that that little dead-beat road in West Virginia may restore my fortune, after all," I replied. The next day I went to Wyanoke and reorganised the affairs of the little road. Shortly afterwards orders for freight cars came in faster than we were able to supply them, and we called at once on the cars of the Great South Midland and Atlantic. "If you weren't a friend, this would be a mighty good chance to squeeze you," remarked the General; "we could keep your cars back until we'd clean squelched your traffic, and then buy the little road up for a song. It's business, but it isn't fair, and I'll be blamed if I'm going to squelch a friend." He did not squelch us, being as good as his word; the undeveloped coal fields developed amazingly and the result was that before the year was over, I had sold the little road at my own price to the big one. Then I stood up and drew breath, like a man released from the weight of irons. "We can go into our own home," I said joyfully to Sally. "In a year or two, if all goes well, and I work hard, we'll be back again where we were." "Where we were?" she repeated, and there was, I thought, a listless note in her voice. "Doesn't it make you happy?" I asked. "Oh, I'm glad, glad the debt is gone, and now you'll look young and splendid again, won't you?" "I'll try hard if you want me to." "I do want you to," she answered, looking up at me with a smile. The window was open, and a flood of sunshine fell on her pale brown hair, as it rested against the high arm of a chintz-covered sofa. Her hand, small and childlike, though less round and soft than it had been two years ago, caressed my cheek when I bent over her. She was well again, she was blooming, but the bloom was paler and more delicate, and there was a fragility in her appearance which was a new and disturbing sign of diminished strength. Would she ever, even when cradled in luxuries, recover her buoyant health, her sparkling vitality, I wondered. The old Bland house, with the two great sycamores growing beside it, was for sale; and thinking to please Sally, I bought it without her knowledge, filled, as it was, with the Bland and Fairfax furniture, which had surrounded Miss Mitty and Miss Matoaca. On the day some eight or nine months later that we moved into it the sycamores were budding, and there were faint spring scents in the air. "This is where you belong. This is home to you," I said as we stood on the wide porch at the back, and looked down on the garden. "You will be happy here, dearest." "Oh, yes, I'll be happy here." "It won't be so hard for you when I'm obliged to leave you alone. I'm sorry I've had to be away so much of late. Have you been lonely?" "I've taken up riding again. George has found me a new horse, a beauty. To-morrow I shall follow the hounds with Bonny." "Oh, be careful, Sally, promise me that you will be careful."