"I hope not, sir, not permanently at least."
"That's right. Algonquin's a fine place to have in the background of one's life, but it's rather small for any expansion. Did you know I've had an eye on you since you were up north last winter?"
"On me?" cried Roderick amazed.
"Yes, just on you." The portly figure shook with a good humoured amusement at the young man's modest amazement. "I heard about you from my brother and then from Kent. Let me see, I suppose there will be high doings all day to-day. What about to-morrow? Could I see you for a little talk to-morrow morning?"
Roderick set the hour for the appointment, silently wondering. His heart was throbbing with expectation, vague, wonderful. Some great event was surely pending. He went home that night, full of high expectations. When he made a great success of his life and came back to Algonquin, rich and with a name, he would go to her and show her he had been right, and she had been wrong.
CHAPTER XII
"THE MELODY DEADEN'D"
"And you don't mean to tell me you were such a fool as to say he might go?" J. P. Thornton, walking up the hill for the fourth time on the way home from a session meeting with Lawyer Ed, asked the question again in an extremity of indignation.
And Lawyer Ed answered as he had done each time before: