Alexander Hillings nodded absently; Cryble's philosophy was correct for a clerk, an assistant, but Alexander Hillings felt the tyranny of a wider necessity. He wondered where he could get the money to satisfy the claim of the doctor's heirs. His manufacturing interests in West Virginia, depreciated as they were at present, would about cover the debt. Ordinarily they were worth a third more; and in ten years they would double in value. He relentlessly crushed all regret at parting with what was now his best property and promptly made arrangements to secure permanently the timberland. Soon, he felt, John Wooddrop must feel the pinch of fuel shortage; and Alexander awaited such development with keen attention. As he had anticipated, when driving from the canal, he saw that the Blue Lump Furnace had gone out of blast, its workmen dispersed. Gisela, the day before, had been to see her father; and he was curious to hear what she might report. A feeling of coming triumph, of inevitable worldly expansion, settled comfortably over him, and he regarded his wife pleasantly through a curtain of cigar smoke. They were seated in a parlor, already shadowy with an early February dusk; coals were burning brightly in a polished open stove, by which Gisela was embroidering in brightly colored wool on a frame. She had the intent, placid expression of a woman absorbed in a small, familiar duty. As he watched her Alexander Hulings' satisfaction deepened—young and fine and vigorous, she was preeminently a wife for his importance and position. She gazed at him vacantly, her eyes crinkled at the comers, her lips soundlessly counting stitches, and a faint smile rose to his lips. He was anxious to hear what she might say about John Wooddrop, and yet a feeling of propriety restrained him from a direct question. He had not had a line, a word or message, from Wood-drop since he had married the other's daughter. The aging man, he knew, idolized Gisela; and her desertion—for so John Wooddrop would hold it—must have torn the Ironmaster. She had, however, been justified in her choice, he contentedly continued his train of thought. Gisela had everything a woman could wish for. He had been a thoughtful husband. Her clothes, of the most beautiful texture and design, were pinned with jewels; her deftly moving fingers flashed with rings; the symbol of his success, his—— “My father looks badly, Alexander,” she said suddenly. “I wish you would see him, and that he would talk to you. But you won't and he won't. He is very nearly as stubborn as yourself. I wish you could make a move; after all, you are younger.... But then, you would make each other furious in a second.” She sighed deeply. “Has he shown any desire to see me?” “No,” she admitted. “You must know he thinks you married me only to get his furnaces; he is ridiculous about it—just as if you needed any more! He has been fuming and planning a hundred things since his charcoal has been getting low.”