ONE:He folded and docketed the sheets that showed the monthly profits, and most unusually for him at this busy hour of the morning, sat idly at his desk. The business of his stores here whirled along its course automatically, with Hugh who had been so sedulously trained in his fathers thorough-going school to look after it, and no longer needed his daily supervision. With the income which came to him from years of prudent investment he wanted no more, and he wondered whether the time was come to turn the business into a company. As vendor he would receive a considerable block of shares and yet leave the company with an excellent return for their money. Hugh would probably become general director, and he himself, secure in an ample fortune, would have all his time at his own disposal. Next year, it is true, he would be Mayor of Bracebridge, which would leave him but little leisure, for he had no notion of being anything but a hard-worked head of the towns municipal affairs, but after that he could retire from active life altogether, as far as offices and superintendence went. But he by no means looked forward to a life of well-fed,{68} well-housed idleness; the secret garden should spread its groves, he would live permanently in the busy cultivation of it. But it must spread itself considerably: he must be immersed in its atmosphere and lawns and thickets as thoroughly as, hitherto, he had been immersed in the fortunes of the Stores."I knew it! I knew it was her! Ah, you rogue, you know it was her!"
ONE:My whole nature was upheaved. You may smile, but my plight was awful. In the sultry night I grew cold. My bridle-hand, still lying under her palm, turned and folded its big stupid fingers over hers. Then our hands slid apart and we rode back. "I wish I were good enough to know the stars," she said, gazing up. "Tell me some of them."
ONE:Since then the Corner House looked down with blank shuttered eyes on the street. None had ever penetrated its mystery, nobody had crossed its threshold from that day to this. The stern dark man had disappeared; he had locked up his house and gone, leaving not so much as a caretaker behind.
