He became suddenly thoughtful, and did not speak until we reached the
tall clock tower with its full moon of a face shining high up against
the black winter night.
Then he stood still, looked out over the white street, dotted here and
there with belated wayfarers trudging home through the snow, and said
with a tremor in his voice which startled me:--
"I couldn't raise a dollar in a lunatic asylum full of millionaires
on a scheme like the colonel's, and yet I keep on lying to the dear
old fellow day after day, hoping that something will turn up by which
I can help him out."
"Then tell him so."
Fitz laid his hand on my shoulder, looked me straight in the face, and
said:--
"I cannot. It would break his heart."
CHAPTER III
_An Old Family Servant_
The colonel's front yard, while as quaint and old-fashioned as his
house, was not--if I may be allowed--quite so well bred.
This came partly from the outdoor life it had always led and from its
close association with other yards that had lost all semblance of
respectability, and partly from the fact that it had never felt the
refining influences of the friends of the house; for nobody ever
lingered in the front yard who by any possibility could get into the
front door--nobody, except perhaps now and then a stray tramp, who
felt at home at once and went to sleep on the steps.
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