Her face became more serious, but all the sparkle remained in it. "There are so many things I want to talk over with you. One is a check my father has just given me. Every autumn he gives me a sum to spend on philanthropic purposes just as I see fit--he never asks me about it. The check's for twenty thousand dollars. I thought you might have some suggestions as to what to do with it--something in line with what we have often talked about. But we'll speak of that and some other things later. First of all, have you heard anything from your book?" "Not a word." "You will--and favourably, I am sure. I want to say again what I've written--I think it's splendid as a piece of literary work and splendid as a work of serious significance. And Uncle Henry is just as enthusiastic as I am." David reddened with pleasure, and his enthusiasm, dead for over a month now, began to warm with new life. Her eyes were looking straight into his own, and the love that had several times urged him beyond the limits of discretion, now pressed him again--and again all his strength was required to hold it silent. "But come!--we were to walk, you know," she said, smiling lightly. "I'll prove that I'm the better walker." During their silent passage through the halls to the Mission door, it returned to him that she was the daughter of the man who, by an even-toned word, had destroyed one of his hopes and utterly destroyed all of Rogers's. His high spirit, which had been but a weaker reflection of her own, faded from his face, leaving it tired and drawn; and she, looking up at him, saw the striking change. "Why, have you been ill?" she exclaimed. A grim little smile raised the corners of his mouth. "No." "Then you've been working too hard. What have you been doing since you finished your book?" He briefly told of his discharge and his acceptance of a position with Rogers--and while he spoke his refluent bitterness tempted him to go on and tell her father's act of yesterday. "But this was over a month ago," she said when he had ended. "Have the expected developments in Mr. Rogers's business taken place?" "Tell her all," Temptation ordered. He resisted this command, and then Temptation approached him more guilefully. "Tell her all, only give no names but yours and Rogers, and no clues that would enable her to identify her father." This appealed to David's bitterness, and instantly he began. He told her Rogers's true story, which of course he had as yet not done--of Rogers's fight, so like his own--of Rogers's deception of the world for ten years that he might live honestly--of his loneliness during that time, his fears, his secret kindnesses--of the first stages of the real estate deal--of the vast meaning of success to Rogers, and of its meaning to himself--and finally of the happenings of the day before. "So you see," he ended, "this Mr. A. has utterly destroyed Mr. Rogers, in cold blood, merely that he might increase the profits of his company."