the whole matter."

Frank eyed her furiously. "How ashamed father would be!" exclaimed he.

But this solemn invoking of the dead man's spirit was uneffectual. The
specter of poverty was too insistent, too terrible. Said the widow:

"I'm sure, in the circumstances, my dear dead husband would want me to
get help from someone older and more experienced."

And Frank, guilty of conscience and an expert in the ways of
conventional and highly moral rascality, ceased to resist. His wife,
scenting danger to their getting the share that "rightfully belongs to
the son, especially when he has been the brains of the firm for several
years," made angry and indiscreet battle for no outside interference.
The longer she talked the firmer the widow and the daughter became, not
only because she clarified suspicions that had been too hazy to take
form, but also because they disliked her intensely. The following day
Wharton Conover became unofficial administrator. He had no difficulty
in baffling Frank Gower's half-hearted and clumsy efforts to hide two
large fees due the dead man's estate. He discovered clear assets
amounting in all to sixty-three thousand dollars, most of it available
within a few months.

"As you have the good-will of the firm and as your mother and sister
have only what can be realized in cash," said he to Frank, "no doubt
you won't insist on your third."

"I've got to consider my wife," said Frank. "I can't do as I'd like."

"You are going to insist on your third?" said Conover, with an accent
that made Frank quiver.

"I can't do otherwise," said he in a dogged, shamed way.

"Um," said Conover. "Then, on behalf of my sister and her daughter
I'll have to insist on a more detailed accounting than you have been
willing to give--and on the production of that small book bound in red
leather which disappeared from my brother-in-law's desk the afternoon
of his death."

A wave of rage and fear surged up within Frank Gower and crashed
against the seat of his life. For days thereafter he was from time to
time seized with violent spasms of trembling; years afterward he was
attributing premature weaknesses of old age to the effects of that
moment of horror. His uncle's words came as a sudden, high shot climax
to weeks of exasperating peeping and prying and questioning, of sneer
and insinuation. Conover had been only moderately successful at the
law, had lost clients to Frank's father, had been beaten when th