The next morning Halloran walked to the village after breakfast for a talk with Le Duc, but the “company” had left by an early train. “I don't know,” he said to Margaret when they talked it over later in the day; “there's not much use being sorry for them. They'd have landed on this level sooner or later anyhow--nothing could stop them. And he can't do anything like the harm with his silver-set swindle that he could have if Bigelow had succeeded in putting his deal through.” “I'm a little sorry for Lizzie, though. I used to think she might amount to something. You see, John, I can't quite forget that if it hadn't been for her and George we might not--maybe we wouldn't have come to know each other so well.” They were walking in the orchard. As she spoke she picked a cluster of apple blossoms and turned to pin them on his coat. “Perhaps not,” he said, looking down at her and smiling, “but I don't know. Maybe we'd have landed on this level, too, no matter how we started. I like to think so.” She looked up with one of the quick, shy glances he was learning to expect; and as quickly looking down again, and lowering her head over the blossoms, she murmured, “So do I.” THE END End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Whip Hand, by Samuel Merwin