The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1898-01-07
XIII.-CONTINUED.

XIlI.-CONTINUED.
He kept his room at Duncan's and
rode often up the valley, both for the
sake of the intimacy which the nature
Of his quest made impossible elsewhere,
and because he honestly wanted to be
true to the new ideal; and he went
oftener and stayed longer when he be-
gan to feel the ground slipping from
under him in the small matter of senti-
ment. He said rather bitterly that he
must be true to something; that he
should lose what little self-respect his
tickle precipitancy had left him if he
suffered himself to swerve from the
plain path he had chosen in the day of
Illness
For some of the doubts and much
of the dissatisfaction, Elsie was her
self answerable. She was frank with
out being confidential; she was affec-
tionate and sympathetic, but she never
gave him an opportunity to add word
to those already spoken. She rejoiced
frankly in his stubborn perseverance
in the Kilgrow affair. and she was
openly thankful when the tide of i'll
health began to ebb; but beyond all
this, Philip felt that there was a bar
rier which he had never been permit
ted to pass. He told himself that it
was maidenly modesty-a nice refine
ment of womanly del;cacy which de-
Tended her from the ambiguity of his
impulsive declarations; and in this be-
lief he went about. seeking the OPP
portunity for palmer speech which
chance or something else persistently
denied him. Sometimes it was Else's
mood; oftener it was the presence of 4
third person = either Duncan or his
wife, or Protheroe. After such BATTLE
mcnts Philip scourged himself dutiful-
ly, heaping abuse on his own head for
not overriding such trivial obstacles.
He insisted that he owed it to himself
no less than to Elsie that there should
be a clear understanding between
them; driven into words, the thought
would have been that he would be surer
of himself when there was no possibili-
ty of retreat.
Without doubt, and in the face OF
much matter for thankfulness, Philip
was neither good enough nor bad
enough to be wholly comfortable. Like
most compromises, the compromising
with ones conscience leaves the main
question still unsettled: and as to ben
Gifts, it was TO the giver and not to the
receiver that the blessing was prom
ised It is true that Philip had found
an employment that called out the best
there was in him, and that in the bat
tie he had somehow stumbled into the
path that led away from sickness and
dependency; but at times he was tor
mented by the thought that he had
paid too dearly for ambition and bet
ter health. 1t was if he had sold him
self for an extension of life and the
wherewithal to make it worth the hav-
ing.
Two grains of comfort he had man.
aged to sift out of the summers chaff.
One was that Helen's sisterly letters
added no fuel to the fires of conscience;
and the other was the news that the
bank in which the Thorndyke money
was invested was in difficulties. BE
smiled at the thought that he was
able to extract comfort from this, but
so it was; the threat of disaster made
him throw himself with redoubled ar
dor into the case in equity. 1t might
easily happen that his attorneys fee
would be all that was left him when
the day of reckoning came. ard under
the spur of this premonition he took
counsel of zeal and taxed his resources
yet more persistently.
And in the matter of resources Philip
had developed a creditable measure of
that ingenuity which is usually but not
always the handmaiden of experience.
He had attempted through various
channels to make overtures to Prag-
more. He had tried to trace Gates and
his convenient witness. He had ran
sacked the old town, ferreting out
everyone who could give him the slight
est information about Gates or. Kilgrow,
the tenantry of the farm. the raid of the
revenue officers. and such other scraps
of local history as might have a bearing
ON the case. he had ridden for days on