ears--since I was a boy of sixteen,--only, I didn't realize it until
my return to Port Agnew. I can't very well help loving Nan, can I,
dad?"

To his amazement, his father smiled at him sympathetically.

"No; I do not see how you could very well help yourself, son," he
replied. "She's an extraordinary young woman. After my brief and
accidental interview with her recently, I made up my mind that there
would be something radically wrong with you if you didn't fall in
love with her."

His son grinned back at him.

"Proceed, old lumberjack!" he begged. "Your candor is soothing to my
bruised spirit."

"No; you cannot help loving her, I suppose. Since you admit being in
love with her, the fact admits of no argument. It has happened, and I
do not condemn you for it. Both of you have merely demonstrated in the
natural, human way that you are natural human beings. And I'm grateful
to Nan for loving you. I think I should have resented her not doing
so, for it would demonstrate her total lack of taste and appreciation
of my son. She informed me, in so many words, that she wouldn't marry
you."

"Nan has the capacity, somewhat rare in a woman, of keeping her own
counsel. That is news to me, dad. However, if you had waited about two
minutes, I would have informed you that I do not intend to marry
Nan--" He paused for an infinitesimal space and added, "yet."

The Laird elevated his eyebrows.

"'Yet?'" he repeated.

Donald flushed a little as he reiterated his statement with an
emphatic nod.

"Why that reservation, my son?"

"Because, some day, Nan may be in position to prove herself that which
I know her to be--a virtuous woman--and when that time comes, I'll
marry her in spite of hell and high water."

Old Hector sighed. He was quite familiar with the fact that, while the
records of the county clerk of Santa Clara County, California,
indicated that a marriage license had been issued on a certain date
to a certain man and one Nan Brent, of Port Agnew, Washington, there
was no official record of a marriage between the two. The Reverend Mr.
Tingley's wife had sorrowfully imparted that information to Mrs.
McKaye, who had, in turn, informed old Hector, who had received the
news with casual interest, little dreaming that he would ever have
cause to remember it in later years. And The Laird was an old man,
worldly-wise and of mature judgment. His soul wore the scars of human
perfidy, and, because he could understand the wea