e a day older for the dozen
years gone by. Her days were serene and full of good works. Such women do
not lose the charm of youth until late in life.

"I have come for help, as you told me to do when I took Leigh away,"
Doctor Carey said as they sat on the south veranda in the pleasant light
of the May evening.

Jane Aydelot's face was expectant. Nobody except Doctor Carey knew how a
little hungry longing in her eyes disappeared when he made his brief
visits and crept back again when he said good-by.

"I am waiting always to help you," she replied.

"I need fourteen hundred dollars to loan to Leigh, and I must have that
sum at once."

Miss Jane looked thoughtfully at the deep woodland, hiding the marshes as
of old.

"I can arrange it," she said presently. "Tell me about it."

And Horace Carey told her all of Leigh's plans.

"It is a wonderful undertaking for a girl, but she has faith in herself,
and if she fails, the land is abundantly worth the mortgage with nothing
but weeds on it," the doctor explained. "She is a charming girl. She seems
to have inherited all of her mother's sweetness and artistic gifts,
without her mother's submissiveness to others; and from her father, she
has keen business qualities, but fails to inherit his love of gain and
traits of trickery. Her executive mind with her uncle's good heart make a
winning team. By the way, my affection for Jim Shirley is leading me to
make some quiet investigation of an agent of Tank's who is hounding Jim
and will, I suppose, turn against Leigh. Can you help me at all?"

Doctor Carey had always felt that Miss Jane knew much more than she cared
to tell of the Shirley family's affairs.

She rose without replying and went into the house. In a few minutes she
returned and gave a large sealed envelope into Doctor Carey's hands.

"Do not use that until it is needed to protect someone from Tank Shirley's
violence. It is legally drawn and witnessed. You will find it effective if
it is needed at all."

"I have one more duty, Miss Aydelot," Doctor Carey said. "My time is
brief. I have an intuition, too, that I may never come East again."

Jane Aydelot's face whitened, and her hands closed involuntarily on one
another as she waited.

"I must have you and Asher Aydelot reconciled. What can I tell him of
you?"

The pink flush returned to the pale cheeks.

"Let him read my will. I copied it when I had your telegram two days ago.
I cannot give him my property