from every man, woman, and child in the United
States, it would just about add up to what he and the Grahams possessed,
and my Grandfather Standish's interests were three-quarters of the
whole. I remember how a hunted look would come into my Uncle Peter's
face at times when I asked him how all this money was used, and where it
was. And he never answered me as I wanted to be answered, and I never
understood. I didn't know _why_ people feared my grandfather and John
Graham. I didn't know of the stupendous power my grandfather's money had
rolled up for them. I didn't know"--her voice sank to a shuddering
whisper--"I didn't know how they were using it in Alaska, for instance.
I didn't know it was feeding upon starvation and ruin and death. I don't
think even Uncle Peter knew _that_."

She looked at Alan steadily, and her gray eyes seemed burning up with a
slow fire.

"Why, even then, before Uncle Peter died, I had become one of the
biggest factors in all their schemes. It was impossible for me to
suspect that John Graham was _anticipating_ a little girl of thirteen,
and I didn't guess that my Grandfather Standish, so straight, so grandly
white of beard and hair, so like a god of power when he stood among men,
was even then planning that I should be given to him, so that a
monumental combination of wealth might increase itself still more in
that juggernaut of financial achievement for which he lived. And to
bring about my sacrifice, to make sure it would not fail, they set
Sharpleigh to the task, because Sharpleigh was sweet and good of face,
and gentle like Uncle Peter, so that I loved him and had confidence in
him, without a suspicion that under his white hair lay a brain which
matched in cunning and mercilessness that of John Graham himself. And he
did his work well, Alan."

A second time she had spoken his name, softly and without embarrassment.
With her nervous fingers tying and untying the two corners of a little
handkerchief in her lap, she went on, after a moment of silence in which
the ticking of Keok's clock seemed tense and loud.

"When I was seventeen, Grandfather Standish died. I wish you could
understand all that followed without my telling you: how I clung to
Sharpleigh as a father, how I trusted him, and how cleverly and gently
he educated me to the thought that it was right and just, and my
greatest duty in life, to carry out the stipulation of my grandfather's
will and marry John Graham. Otherwise, he