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 quietly, "of course is lost. I suppose I'm thinking a good deal about that; I know I'm thinking a lot about having the things which father worked at so hard, succeed; but that's not most important. It's to see that father's friends and our neighbors out west—and neighbors and friends include a whole lot of all sorts of people in Wyoming and Montana—to see that they get their money back. Some of them put all they had into these companies, they trusted father so. They thought he was going to live and see everything through."

"Well, why didn't he?"

"He didn't foresee the war, grandfather."

"So when it came, he considered it excused him of all responsibilities, eh? He packed up and off without making any provision for these obligations," the old man picked up the papers to strike them against his desk, "or for his friends who trusted everything to him?"

"No," Ethel denied; and of this she knew her grandfather was completely aware. "He made an arrangement."

"All right; who with?"

"With cousin Oliver, grandfather."

The old man jerked forward, roused to anger at mention of the name. "Damn weakling," he muttered. "What arrangement did he enter into?"

Ethel felt hot blood pricking in her face; she had prepared herself for the taunts against her father who in his life had been strong, but she had not thought of jibes against this cousin who had been his friend.

"Cousin Oliver felt himself physically a—weakling," she said, utilizing her grandfather's word after an instant's hesitation. "That was why he came to