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FIDELIA

was what his father would call lust; and Dave, thinking of this, forgot Fidelia Netley as recollection of his struggle with his father claimed his feelings. At the same moment, Alice mentioned his father with the purpose of taking their talk finally from Fidelia Netley.

"How did you find your father, Davey?"

"Alice, we had the worst time ever!"

"Over the ten thousand dollars?"

"Over everything! The ten thousand dollars simply touched off the other troubles; everything went, money and my plan to go into business and—" he stopped.

"And to marry me," Alice finished.

"Yes; he tried again to break that up. Great chance he had."

"Davey, he feels worse about that—about me—than about your going into business; isn't that true?"

"No; yes; what if he does?" Defiantly Dave thrust an arm about Alice and pressed her close to him as he drove. Gone from her, also, was any fear, or any thought, of Fidelia Netley. She was happy. Not wholly happy; she never could be completely happy until David and she owned each other without right of any one to forbid them love. As it was, his father had a certain right, to forbid them; or perhaps it was not that. Perhaps, without having the right, he possessed rather a power to part them. So, though she no longer thought of Fidelia Netley, Alice quivered in her happiness as David held her and proclaimed:

"I'm going to make money, Alice! I want to!