from you
now."

"My five years' desertion!" exclaimed Mona. Surely this girl was more
than reckless in her talk. Kitty was not to be put down. "If you don't
mind plain speaking, he was always with you, but you weren't always
with him in those days. This letter showed that." She tapped it on her
thumb-nail. "It was only when he had gone and you saw what you had lost,
that you came back to him--in heart, I mean. Well, if you didn't go away
with him when he went, and you wouldn't have gone unless he had ordered
you to go--and he wouldn't do that--it's clear you deserted him, since
you did that which drove him from home, and you stayed there instead of
going with him. I've worked it out, and it is certain you deserted him
five years ago. Desertion doesn't mean a sea of water between, it means
an ocean of self-will and love-me-first between. If you hadn't deserted
him, as this letter shows, he wouldn't have been here. I expect he told
you so; and if he did, what did you say to him?"

The Young Doctor's eyes were full of decorous mirth and apprehension,
for such logic and such impudence as Kitty's was like none he had ever
heard. Yet it was commanding too.

Kitty caught the look in his eyes and blazed up. "Isn't what I said
correct? Isn't it all true and logical? And if it is, why do you sit
there looking so superior?"

The Young Doctor made a gesture of deprecating apology. "It's all true,
and it's logical, too, if you stand on your head when you think it. But
whether it is logical or not, it is your conclusion, and as you've taken
the thing in hand to set it right, it is up to you now. We can only hold
hard and wait."

With a shrug of her graceful shoulders Kitty turned again to Mrs.
Crozier, who intervened hastily, saying, "I did not have a chance of
saying to him all I wished. Of course he could not take my money, but
there was his own money! I was going to tell him about that, but just
then the lawyer, Mr. Burlingame--"

"They all call him 'Gus' Burlingame. He doesn't get the civility of Mr.
here in Askatoon," interposed Kitty.

Mona made an impatient gesture. "If you will listen, I want to tell you
about Mr. Crozier's money. He thinks he has no money, but he has. He has
a good deal."

She paused, and the Young Doctor and Kitty leaned forward eagerly.
"Well, but go on," said Kitty. "If he has money he must have it to-day,
and now. Certainly he doesn't know of it. He thinks he is broke,--dead
broke,--and there'