iage.
The worst that could possibly be said of Nan was that she played in
mighty hard luck."

"In the name of heaven, why did you not tell me this the day you
married her?" The Laird demanded wrathfully.

"I didn't know it the day I married her. She was curious enough to
want to see how game I was. She wanted to be certain I truly loved
her, I think--and in view of her former experience I do not blame her
for it. It pleased you a whole lot, didn't it, honey?" he added,
turning to Nan, "when I married you on faith?"

"But why didn't you tell us after you had discovered it, Donald?" Mrs.
McKaye interrupted. "That was not kind of you, my son."

"Well," he answered soberly, "in the case of you and the girls I
didn't think you deserved it. I kept hoping you and the girls would
confess to Dad that you telephoned Nan to come back to Port Agnew that
time I was sick with typhoid--"

"Eh? What's that?" The Laird sat up bristling.

Mrs. McKaye flushed scarlet and seemed on the verge of tears. Donald
went to her and took her in his arms. "Awfully sorry to have to peach
on you, old dear," he continued. "Do not think Nan told on you,
Mother. She didn't. I figured it all out by myself. However, as I
started to remark, I expected you would confess and that your
confession would start a family riot, in the midst of it I knew
father would rise up and declare himself. I give you my word, Dad,
that for two weeks before I went to work up at Darrow I watched and
waited all day long for you to come down here and tell Nan it was a
bet and that we'd play it as it lay."

Old Hector gritted his teeth and waged his head sorrowfully. "Nellie,"
he warned his trembling wife, "this is what comes of a lack of
confidence between man and wife."

She flared up at that. "Hush, you hypocrite. At least I haven't
snooped around here trying to poison dogs and kill people when I was
discovered playing Peeping Tom. A pretty figure you've cut throughout
this entire affair. Didn't I beg you not to be hard on our poor boy?"

"Yes, you had better lay low, Father," Donald warned him. "You've been
married long enough to know that if you start anything with a woman
she'll put it all over you. We will, therefore, forget Mother's error
and concentrate on you. Remember the night I dragged you ashore at
Darrow's log boom? Well, permit me to tell you that you're a pretty
heavy tow and long before my feet struck bottom I figured on two
Widows McKaye. If I'd had t