e been useless. They'd have thought it a lie."

"Yes, Caleb--a particularly clumsy and stupid lie."

Caleb Brent looked up suddenly and searched, with an alert and wistful
glance, the face of the young laird of Tyee.

"But you do not think so, do you?" he pleaded.

"Certainly not, Caleb, If Nan told you that, then she told you the
truth."

"Thank you, lad."

"Poor old Caleb," Donald soliloquized, "you find it hard to believe it
yourself, don't you? And it does sound fishy!"

"I don't believe it's Nan's fault," Donald found himself saying next.
"She was always a good girl, and I can't look at her now and conceive
her as anything but virtuous and womanly. I'll always be a good friend
of hers, Caleb. I'll stand back of her and see that she gets a square
deal--she and her son. When you're gone, she can leave Port Agnew for
some city where she isn't known, and as 'Mrs. Brent' she can engage in
some self-supporting business. It always struck me that Nan had a
voice."

"She has, Mr. Donald. They had grand opera in Seattle, and I sent her
up there to hear it and having a singing teacher hear her sing 'Alice,
Where Art Thou.' He said she'd be earning a thousand dollars a night
in five years, Mr. Donald, if somebody in New York could train her.
That was the time," he concluded, "that she met _him!_ He was rich
and, I suppose, full of fine graces; he promised her a career if she'd
marry him, and so he dazzled the child--she was only eighteen--and
she went to San Francisco with him. She says there was some sort of
marriage, but he gave her no such gift as I gave her mother--a
marriage certificate. She wrote me she was happy, and asked me to
forgive her the lack of confidence in not advising with me--and of
course I forgave her, Mr. Donald. But in three months he left her, and
one night the door yonder opened and Nan come in and put her arms
round my neck and held me tight, with never a tear--so I knew she'd
cried her fill long since and was in trouble." He paused several
seconds, then added, "Her mother was an admiral's daughter--and she
married me!" He appeared to suggest this latter as a complete
explanation of woman's frailty.

"The world is small, but it is sufficiently large to hide a girl from
the Sawdust Pile of Port Agnew. Of course, Nan cannot leave you now,
but when you leave her, Caleb, I'll finance her for her career. Please
do not worry about it."

"I'm like Nan, sir," he murmured. "I'm beyond tears, or I'