"I don't want any more money, Peter, I'd sooner have you." The little
woman's voice was very pleading.
"Look here, Barbara," he exploded, "I've made nearly thirty thousand
dollars out of real estate. I got the money, you understand, but the
game was too stiff and took too much time, so I put that and what else
I could raise into stock--in Toronto. I've already made twenty
thousand more, that's fifty, and the last twenty was without any effort
or time on my part. I've only got to leave it alone for another year,
and I'll pull out with an even hundred thousand and retire and devote
the rest of my time to you and the children. Isn't that fair enough?"
"Do you say that you have already made fifty thousand dollars?" She
was staring at him with startled and incredulous eyes. The sum
staggered her.
"Yes," he chuckled contentedly.
She put her arms around his neck. "Then, Peter," she implored, "stop
now. It's enough--it's marvelously more than I ever dreamed of. Oh!
we can be so happy."
He shook his head. "I've set my mind on the even hundred. Can't you
stand another year of it?"
"I can, but not you," she implored. "You don't know how you've
changed. Peter, I beg you."
"I've got to leave that fifty where it is to make the next," he said
with slow stubbornness. "I'll be the only man in St. Marys who was
wise enough to make hay when the sun shone. You needn't be frightened
for me."
"I'm frightened for myself," she answered shakily. "Won't you do what
I ask? Sometimes," she ventured with delicate courage, "sometimes a
woman can see furthest--though she doesn't know why."
"A year from to-day you'll thank me for sticking it out," came back
Manson stolidly.
"And if it shouldn't turn out as you expect," she replied with a look
that was at once sudden and profound, "you'll remember that I begged
and you refused."
The door closed noiselessly behind her and Manson stared at his desk
with a queer sense of discomfort. Consolidated stock had moved up
buoyantly on the news of the discovery of iron, and he had established
for himself with his Toronto brokers the reputation of a shrewd
operator who worked on the strength of inside information. In front of
him were Toronto letters asking that his agent be kept informed of
developments at St. Marys. It pleased him that this had been achieved
outside his own town and without its knowledge, and he saw himself a
man who was vastly underestimated by his fellow citizens. But in spite
of it all he was daily more conscious of a worm of uncertainty that
gnawed in his brain. The thing was safe, obviously and demonstrably
safe. Against his thousands others had invested millions with which to
buttress the whole gigantic concern. And yet--!