Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/386

 to work in emergencies until I have dropped; to endure poverty, loneliness, derision — and worse. When failures have knocked me down, it is you, my enemies, who have given me the strength to pick myself up and go on.

"Because of you, I am the better able to appreciate true friendship, integrity, the many qualities which go to make up greatness of mind and heart, and that in happier circumstances I have learned do exist. So you see, if you have taken much, perhaps you have given more, and I have an obligation to discharge. Therefore," she turned to her father with a slightly inquiring look, "if the decision still remains with me, I should like to know that the project will go through."

The tense and pent-up feelings of the guests found an outlet in long-drawn breaths and indignant but unconvincing murmurs that "they'd rather starve," which did not prevent all attention focusing upon Prentiss, whose face wore a forbidding grimness from which all semblance of friendliness had long since fled.

"If I had known — if I had dreamed of half of this — I am frank to confess that you could not have interested me in this proposition for the hundredth part of a second. But it will be completed because it is my daughter's wish. However," with cold emphasis, "upon my own terms.

"You may, or may not know, that the involved affairs of the project leave it practically optional with a new company whether they recognize the claims against former companies or repudiate these debts.

"The local claims amount to something like sixty-five thousand dollars, which is a sum of considerable importance, distributed in a town of this size. I had intended to pay these claims in full, largely as a matter of sentiment, presuming that among those affected there