you at once. She was terribly nervous and wrought up."

"Maggie did that!" he breathed. His heart leaped at her unexpected
concern for him. "Maggie did that!" And then: "There wasn't any need;
she should have known that I would know."

"It was rather foolish in a way--but Maggie was too excited to use cool
reason."

His grandmother did not speak for a moment. "Her losing her head and
coming shows that she cares for you, Larry."

He could make no response. This was indeed the clearest evidence Maggie
had yet given that possibly she might care.

"Maggie may have lost her head in her excitement," he managed to say;
"but, grandmother, there was no reason for you to lose your head so far
as to come away out here to tell me about the police."

"I didn't come away out here to tell you about the police," she replied.
"I came to tell you something else."

"Yes?"

"You're sure you really care for Maggie?"

"I told you that when I was down to see you this evening."

Though the Duchess had decided, the desire to protect Larry remained
tenaciously in her and made it hard for her jealous love to take a
risk. "You're sure she might turn out all right--that is, under better
influences?"

"I'm sure, grandmother." He recalled how a few hours earlier at the
Grantham the demand of Old Jimmie that she remain with him had seemed
the force that had controlled her decision. "There would be no doubt of
it if it were not for Old Jimmie, and the people he's kept her among,
and the ideas he's been feeding her since she was a baby. I don't think
she has any love for her father; but they say blood is mighty thick and
I guess with her it's just the usual instinct of a child to stand with
her father and do what he says. Yes, if she were not held back and held
down by having Old Jimmie for a father, I'm sure she'd be all right."

The Duchess felt that the moment had now arrived for her to unloose
her secret. But despite her fixed purpose to tell, her words had to be
forced out, and were halting, bald.

"Jimmie Carlisle--is not her father."

"What's that?" exclaimed Larry.

"Not so loud. I said Jimmie Carlisle is not her father."

"Grandmother!"

"Her father is Joe Ellison."

"Grandmother!" He caught her hands. "Why--why--" But for a moment his
utter dumbfoundment paralyzed his speech. "You're--you're sure of that?"
he finally got out.

"Yes." She went on and told of how her suspicion had been aroused,
of her interview with Joe