m lately. He had begun to experience the sensation
of over-indulgence. Some one had told him, a time back, of Boswell's
leaving the city, and he had been glad of the suspicion that arose in him
when he heard it.

Later in the day the forces Priscilla had set in motion touched and drew
him into the maelstrom.

"Ledyard"--this over the telephone--"my daughter has just informed me
that she is about to break her engagement. May I see you at--three?"

"Yes. Here, or at your office?"

"I will come to you."

They had it out, man to man, and with all the time-honoured and hoary
arguments.

"My girl's a fool!" Moffatt panted, red-faced and eloquent. "Not to
mention what this really means to all of us, there is the girl's own
happiness at stake. What are we to tell the world? You cannot go about
and--explain! Good Lord! Ledyard, Huntter stands so high in public esteem
that to start such a story as this about him would be to ruin my own
reputation."

"No. The thing's got to die," Ledyard mused. "Die at its birth."

"Die in my girl's heart! Good God! Ledyard, you ought to see her after
the one night! It wrings my heart. It isn't as if the slander had killed
her love for him. It hasn't; it has strengthened it. 'I must bear this
for him and for me,' she said, looking at me with her mother's eyes. She
never looked like her mother before. It's broken me up. What's the world
coming to, when women get the bit in their teeth?"

"There are times when all women look alike," Ledyard spoke half to
himself; "I've noticed that." The rest of Moffatt's sentence he ignored.

"Why, in the name of all that is good," Moffatt blazed away, "did you
send that redheaded girl into our lives? I might have known from the hour
she set her will against mine that she was no good omen. Things I haven't
crushed, Ledyard, have always ended by giving me a blow, sooner or later.
Think of her coming into my home last night and daring----" The words
ended in a gulp. "Let me send Margaret to you," pleaded the father at his
wits' end. "Huntter is away. Will not be back until to-morrow. Perhaps
you can move her. You brought her into the world; you ought to try and
keep her here."

At four Margaret entered Ledyard's office. She was very white, very
self-possessed, but gently smiling.

"Dear old friend," she said, drawing near him and taking the role of
comforter at once. "Do not think I blame you. I know you did your best
with your blessed, nigh-to glasses