"I guess Dr. Tarpion will not throw me in the waste-basket! Seven thousand dollars!"
David Lockwin feels as rich as Corkey.
It is a mad thing he is doing, this pulling of the door-bell at the old home. The balcony is overhead. Never mind little Davy! We can live without him, but we cannot live without Esther. Ah that Tarpion! that base Tarpion! Probably he intends to marry her! It is none too soon to pull this bell. Now David Lockwin will enter, never to be driven forth. He will enter among his books. Never mind his books. It is she, SHE, SHE! Till death part them SHE is his. It is the seven thousand dollars that gives him this lion-like courage. Esther needs him. He has come.
The door opens. A pleasant-faced lady appears.
"Call Mrs. Lockwin, please."
"Mrs. Lockwin? Oh, yes. I believe she did live here. I do not know where she lives now, but it is on Prairie avenue. After her father died she went home to live."
Is Judge Wandrell dead? The caller is adding together the mills, pineries, elevators, hotels, steamers, steel mills, quarries and railroads that Judge Wandrell owned on the great lakes.
The pleasant-faced lady thinks her caller ought to go.
He is angry at her. He shows it. He blames her as much as he does Tarpion. He retreats reluctantly. A stranger is in possession of the home of David Lockwin.
He was foolhardy a moment before. He is timid now.