nd she's lost somewhere
in the world. To find her now would be like searching a haystack for a
needle."

"But you might telegraph a space-ad to every leading newspaper in the
country. The Laird can afford to spend a million to find her--if she
can be found in a hurry. Why, even a telegram from her would help to
buck him up."

But Andrew Daney could only sway in his chair and quiver with his
profound distress.

"The scandal!" he kept murmuring, "the damned scandal! I'll have to go
to Seattle to send the telegrams. The local office would leak. And
even if we found her and induced her to come back to save him,
she'd--she'd have to go away again--and if she wouldn't--if he
wouldn't permit her--why, don't you see how impossible a situation has
developed? Man, can Donald McKaye wed Nan Brent of the Sawdust Pile?"

"My interest in the case is neither sentimental nor ethical. It is
entirely professional. It appears to me that in trying to save this
young fellow from the girl, you've signed his death warrant; now it is
up to you to save him from himself, and you're worrying because it may
be necessary later to save the girl from him or him from the girl.
Well, I've stated the facts to you, and I tried to state them to The
Laird. Do as you think best. If the boy dies, of course, I'll swear
that he was doomed, anyhow, due to perforation of the intestines."

"Yes, yes!" Daney gasped. "Let The Laird off as lightly as you can."

"Oh, I'll lie cheerfully. By the way, who is this girl? I haven't been
in Port Agnew long enough to have acquired all the gossip. Is she
impossible?"

"She's had a child born out of wedlock."

"Oh, then she's not a wanton?"

"I'm quite sure she is not."

"Well, I'll be damned! So that's all that's wrong with her, eh?" Like
the majority of his profession, this physician looked up such a
_contretemps_ with a kindly and indulgent eye. In all probability,
most of us would if we but knew as many of the secrets of men as do
our doctors and lawyers.

Long after the doctor had left him alone with his terrible problem,
Mr. Daney continued to sit in his chair, legs and arms asprawl, chin
on breast. From time to time, he cried audibly:

"O Lord! O my God! What have I done? What shall I do? How shall I do
it? O Lord!"

He was quite too incoherent for organized prayer; nevertheless his
agonized cry to Omnipotence was, indeed, a supplication to which the
Lord must have inclined favorably, for, in the mids