ne out of yer mind."

"Oh, don't talk nonsense, father," flared Aileen, angrily, thinking how
hopeless it was to talk to her father about such things anyhow. "I'm
not a child any more. I'm twenty-four years of age. You just don't
understand. Mr. Cowperwood doesn't like his wife. He's going to get a
divorce when he can, and will marry me. I love him, and he loves me, and
that's all there is to it."

"Is it, though?" asked Butler, grimly determined by hook or by crook, to
bring this girl to her senses. "Ye'll be takin' no thought of his
wife and children then? The fact that he's goin' to jail, besides,
is nawthin' to ye, I suppose. Ye'd love him just as much in convict
stripes, I suppose--more, maybe." (The old man was at his best, humanly
speaking, when he was a little sarcastic.) "Ye'll have him that way,
likely, if at all."

Aileen blazed at once to a furious heat. "Yes, I know," she sneered.
"That's what you would like. I know what you've been doing. Frank does,
too. You're trying to railroad him to prison for something he didn't
do--and all on account of me. Oh, I know. But you won't hurt him. You
can't! He's bigger and finer than you think he is and you won't hurt
him in the long run. He'll get out again. You want to punish him on my
account; but he doesn't care. I'll marry him anyhow. I love him, and
I'll wait for him and marry him, and you can do what you please. So
there!"

"Ye'll marry him, will you?" asked Butler, nonplussed and further
astounded. "So ye'll wait for him and marry him? Ye'll take him away
from his wife and children, where, if he were half a man, he'd be
stayin' this minute instead of gallivantin' around with you. And marry
him? Ye'd disgrace your father and yer mother and yer family? Ye'll
stand here and say this to me, I that have raised ye, cared for ye, and
made somethin' of ye? Where would you be if it weren't for me and your
poor, hard-workin' mother, schemin' and plannin' for you year in and
year out? Ye're smarter than I am, I suppose. Ye know more about the
world than I do, or any one else that might want to say anythin' to ye.
I've raised ye to be a fine lady, and this is what I get. Talk about me
not bein' able to understand, and ye lovin' a convict-to-be, a robber,
an embezzler, a bankrupt, a lyin', thavin'--"

"Father!" exclaimed Aileen, determinedly. "I'll not listen to you
talking that way. He's not any of the things that you say. I'll not stay
here." She moved toward the doo