e Ellison was trying to forget, and Larry by his silence deferred to
his friend's desire.

On the day after Joe Ellison's visit to the Duchess, Larry had received
a note from his grandmother, addressed, of course, to "Mr. Brandon."
There was no danger in her writing Larry if she took adequate
precautions: mail addressed to Cedar Crest was not bothered by postal
and police officials; it was only mail which came to the house of the
Duchess which received the attention of these gentlemen.

The note was one which the Duchess, after that night of thought which
had so shaken her old heart, had decided to be a necessity if her plan
of never telling of her discovery of Maggie's real paternity were to be
a success. The major portion of her note dwelt upon a generality with
which Larry already was acquainted: Joe's desire to keep clear of all
talk touching upon the deeds and the people of his past. And then in
a careless-seeming last sentence the Duchess packed the carefully
calculated substance of her entire note:

"It may not be very important--but particularly avoid ever mentioning
the mere name of Jimmie Carlisle. They used to know each other, and
their acquaintance is about the bitterest thing Joe Ellison has to
remember."

Of course he'd never mention Old Jimmie Carlisle, Larry said to himself
as he destroyed the note--never guessing, in making this natural
response to what seemed a most natural request, that he had become an
unconscious partner in the plan of the warm-hearted, scheming Duchess.

There was one detail of Joe Ellison's behavior which aroused Larry's
mild curiosity. Directly beneath one of Joe's gardens, hardly a hundred
yards away, was a bit of beach and a pavilion which were used in common
by the families from the surrounding estates. The girls and younger
women were just home from schools and colleges, and at high tide were
always on the beach. At this period, whenever he was at Cedar Crest,
Larry saw Joe, his work apparently forgotten, gazing fixedly down
upon the young figures splashing about the water in their bright
bathing-suits or lounging about the pavilion in their smart summer
frocks.

This interest made Larry wonder, though to be sure not very seriously.
For he had never a guess of how deep Joe's interest was. He did not
know, could not know, that that tall, fixed figure, with its one
absorbing idea, was thinking of his daughter. He could not know that Joe
Ellison, emotionally elated and wi