rs.
Daney."

The advice was unnecessary. The poor soul could not have left it. The
Laird perched himself on the veranda railing, handed the dumfounded
Daney a cigar, and helped himself to one.

"Well, proceed," The Laird commanded. His words apparently were
addressed to both, but his glance was fixed on Mrs. Daney--and now she
understood full well her husband's description of the McKaye look.

"I had finished what I had to say, Mr. McKaye," Andrew Daney found
courage to say.

"So I noted, Andrew, and right well and forcibly you said it. I'm
grateful to you. I make no mistake, I think, if your statement wasn't
in reply to some idle tale told your good wife and repeated by her to
you--in confidence, of course, as between man and wife."

"If you'll excuse me, Mr. McKaye, I--I'd rather not--discuss it!"
Mary Daney cried breathlessly.

"I would I did not deem it a duty to discuss it myself, Mary. But you
must realize that when the tongue of scandal touches my son, it
becomes a personal matter with me, and I must look well for a weapon
to combat it. You'll tell me now, Mary, what they've been saying about
Donald and Caleb Brent's daughter."

"Andrew will tell you," she almost whispered, and made as if to go.
But The Laird's fierce eyes deterred her; she quailed and sat down
again.

"Andrew cannot tell me, because Andrew doesn't know," The Laird
rebuked her kindly. "I heard him tell you not to tell him, that he
wasn't a gossip, and wouldn't befoul the salt he ate by being
disloyal, or words to that effect. Is it possible, Mary Daney, that
you prefer me to think you are not inspired by similar sentiments?
Don't cry, Mary--compose yourself."

"Idleness is the mother of mischief, and since the children have grown
up and left home, Mary hasn't enough to keep her busy," Daney
explained. "So, womanlike and without giving sober thought to the
matter, she's been listening to the idle chattering of other idle
women. Now then, my dear," he continued, turning to his wife, "that
suspicion you just voiced didn't grow in your head. Somebody put it
there--and God knows it found fertile soil. Out with it now, wife!
Who've you been gossiping with?"

"I'll name no names," the unhappy woman sobbed; "but somebody told me
that somebody else was down at the Sawdust Pile the day Donald burned
those shacks, and after be burned them he spent an hour in the Brent
cottage, and when he came out he had the baby in his arms. When he
left, th