As soon as Berny had left his office Bill Cannon¹ wrote a note to Mrs. Ryan, telling her of the interview he had just had with her daughter-in-law. He did not mention the check, simply stating Berny’s decision to accept their proposal and leave her husband. The matter was of too intimate a nature to trust to the telephone and he sent the note by one of his own clerks, who had instructions to wait for an answer, as the old man did not know what Mrs. Ryan might already have heard from Dominick.  
It threw its recipient² into a state of agitated³, quivering exultation⁴. Mrs. Ryan had heard nothing from her son, and her hopes of the separation had sunk to the lowest ebb⁵. Not so prudent⁶ as Cannon, she called up Dominick at the bank, asking him if it were true that his wife had left him, and beseeching⁷ him simply to tell her “yes” or “no.” The young man, hampered⁸ by the publicity⁹ of his surroundings and his promise to Berny, answered her with the utmost brevity, telling her[487] that there had been a change in his domestic life but that he could not enter into details now. He begged her to ask him no further questions as he would be at home at three o’clock that afternoon, when he would explain the whole matter to her.
 
She wrote this to the Bonanza¹⁰ King and sent it by his waiting messenger. The old man felt relieved when he read the letter. He was confident now that Berny had not deceived him. She had told the truth, and was leaving the town and her husband, for what reason he could not yet be sure, but there seemed no doubt that she was going. They would ignore the subject before Rose, and, in the course of time, Dominick would break down the unflinching resistance she had threatened to make to his suit. The old man felt buoyant and exhilarated. It looked as if things were at last going their way.
 
He sent a message to Mrs. Ryan, asking her to let him know as soon as possible what Dominick said, and waited in his office in a state of tension very foreign to his usual iron stolidity¹¹. It was four o’clock before word came from her in the form of a telephone message, demanding his presence at her house at the earliest possible moment. He responded to it at once, and in the sitting-room¹² of the Ryan mansion¹³ heard from Dominick’s own lips the story of his false and tragic¹⁴ marriage.
 
[488]The old man listened, unwinking, speechless, immovable. It was the one thing he had never thought of, a solution of the situation that was as completely unexpected to him as death would have been. He said nothing to Dominick about the money he had given Berny, did not mention having seen her. A sharp observer might have noticed that he looked a little blank, that, the first shock of surprise over, there was a slight expression of wandering attention in his eye, a suggestion of mental faculties¹⁵ inwardly focusing on an unseen point, about his manner.
 
He walked home, deeply thinking, abashed¹⁶ a little by the ease with which Fate unties¹⁷ the knots that man’s clumsy fingers work over in vain. And it was untied¹⁸. They were free—the boy and girl he loved—to realize his and their own dreams. It would need no years of wooing to melt Rose from stony¹⁹ resistance. Nobody had been sacrificed.
 
He felt a sense of gratitude²⁰ toward Berny. Down in his heart he was conscious of a stirring of something that was kindly²¹, almost affectionate, toward her. It did not require a great stretch of imagination to see himself and her as two knowing, world-battered rogues²² who had combined to let youth and innocence²³ have their happiness. He could almost feel the partnership²⁴ with her she had spoken of, a sort of bond of Masonic understanding, a kindred attitude in[489] matters of ethics²⁵. They had a mutually low estimate of human nature, a bold, cool unscrupulousness, a daring courage that never faltered²⁶. In fact, he was sorry he had not given Berny the whole fifty thousand dollars.
 
“She could have got it out of me,” he said to himself, pondering pensively²⁷. “If she’d stuck out for it I’d have given it to her. And she might just as well have had it.”
 
That evening for the first time in nearly three years Dominick Ryan dined with his mother in the great dining-room of the Ryan mansion. Cornelia was out with Jack²⁸ Duffy, so Mrs. Ryan had her boy all to herself and she beamed and glowed and gloated on him as he sat opposite her, the reddened light of the candles falling on his beloved, familiar face.
 
After dinner they went into the sitting-room, the sanctum with the ebonized cherry furniture where the family always retired²⁹ when important matters were afoot. Here, side by side, they sat before the fireplace with the portrait of the late Cornelius Ryan looking

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