aby of four or five, I believe, and that Randy scurried about and got
him back after no end of fuss. I've heard dad speak of that."

"Did Kitty and that man ever marry?"

"No; you can be sure Teevan saw to that. He took precious good care not
to divorce her. They manage those things more politely nowadays;
everything formal, six months' lease of a furnished house in Sioux
Falls, with the chap living at a hotel and dropping in for tea every day
at five; and felicitations from the late husband when the decree is
granted in the morning and the new knot tied in the afternoon--another
slipknot like the first, so that the merest twitch at a loose end
will----"

"Please don't! And did you never know anything more about them, where
they lived or how they ended?"

"Never a thing, Sis. It's all so old, everybody's forgotten it, except
Teevan. Of course he'd not forget the only woman who ever really put a
lance through his shirt-of-mail vanity."

"You forget Kitty's mother. She remembers."

"That's so, by Jove. Teevan got what was coming to him, he got his
'cone-uppance' as the boys say; but old Kitty--yes, it was rough on her.
But she's always put a great face on it. No one would know if they
_didn't_ know."

"She's proud. Even though she's been another mother to me she rarely
lets me see anything, and she's tried so hard to find comfort in Kitty's
boy, in Alden. She's failed in that, though, for some reason."

Her brother glanced sharply at her. "I'll tell you why she's failed,
Nell. Alden Teevan wasn't designed to be a comfort to anyone, not even
to himself. There was too much Teevan in him at the start, and too much
Teevan went into his raising."

"They're back in town, you know."

"Yes; Teevan must have realized that old Kitty is getting on in years,
and has a bit of money for Alden. Say, Sis, I hate to seem prying, but
you don't--you're not thinking about Alden Teevan seriously, are you?
Come, let's be confidential for twenty seconds."

She mused a moment, then faced him frankly.

"There's something I like in Alden, and something I don't. I know what I
like and I don't know what I don't like--I only feel it. There!"

He reached over to take one of her hands.

"Well, Sis, you trust to the feeling. You couldn't be happy there. And
you deserve something fine, poor child! You deserve to be happy again."
His inner eye looked back six years to see the body of poor Dick Laithe
carried into the Adirondack camp by tw