yes widened a little, and the man shifted his
position uneasily.

"The true realization of how deeply we all stand in Tom Wallifarro's
debt," he made blunt response.

"I've always known," she hastily declared, "that he's been a fairy
godfather, and given me things--luxurious things--that mother's income
couldn't run to."

Larry Masters laughed with a shade of bitterness.

"Your mother has never had any income, Anne. As for myself, there's
never been a time since you were a baby when I could make buckle and
tongue meet. That's the whole ugly truth. House-rent, clothes, food,
education, everything, necessities as well as comforts, livelihood as
well as luxuries--the whole lot and parcel have come to my wife and my
daughter from the generous hand of Tom Wallifarro. But for that, God
knows what their lives would have been."

Anne Masters rose and stood unsteadily on the rag rug before the stone
flaggings of the hearth.

"You mean ... that we ... have ... been actual dependents on his
kindness--that we've just been ... charity ... parasites?"

The girl's hands came to her bosom and a shiver ran through her. The
warm flood of colour left her cheeks, and her eyes were deep with
chagrined amazement.

The man did not answer the questions, and she went on with another:

"Do you mean ... for I must know ... that we've lived as we have on
nothing but ... generous charity?... That he's been paying all these
years what it cost ... to raise me properly ... for his son?"

"Hold on, Anne--" The convalescent raised an admonitory hand. "There's
danger of doing people who love you a grave injustice. Tom Wallifarro
would go to his grave with his lips sealed, though torture were used to
open them, before he would seek to coerce you or make you unhappy. If
you've never been told the facts, it was because he preferred that there
should be no burdensome sense of obligation."

"But always," Anne insisted faintly, as though oppressed by poignant
physical pain, "he has done these things ... with the one ... idea ...
that I was to be ... his son's wife."

"I should rather say," quietly amended Larry Masters, "with that dream
and hope."

"And, Mother," she asked, in a strangely strained voice, "Mother has
assured him that ... when the time comes ... she could ... deliver the
goods?"

Larry had seen Anne in childhood transports of passion, but never before
cold and white in such a stillness of wrath as that which transformed
her no