o purchase this property."

"The telegram Mr. Thayor sent, you mean?"

"No--a letter. It meant separation to them. I saw her hand it to the
doctor to read. Do you know what he did? He condemned Miss Margaret's
lungs--told her mother the child had consumption. By God--I could have
strangled him!"

Holcomb gripped the log on which he sat, staring grimly at the butler.

"Yes, ordered her here!" continued Blakeman. "That was _their way
out. Damn him_! Ordered her here--winter and summer, knowing that her
father would go along with her, and let the wife do as she pleased. It
was damnable!"

There are two kinds of anger that seize a man--explosive and
suppressed. Holcomb was now suffering under the latter--a subtle anger
that would undoubtedly have meant serious injury to the immaculate
Sperry had he been unlucky enough to have crossed his path at the
moment.

As Blakeman, little by little, unfolded more of the doctor's villainy,
Holcomb's muscles relaxed and his indignation, which had risen by
degrees until it boiled within him, now settled to reason. He had not
only Thayor's happiness to think of, but Margaret's as well. Both,
he determined, must be kept in ignorance of what, so far, only he and
Blakeman knew.

"The morning the little fellow, Le Boeuf, got hurt," Blakeman went on,
"the doctor took Miss Margaret for a walk. I was in the pantry and
saw them start off together in the woods down by the brook. I followed
them--I couldn't help it; I had a little girl myself once in the old
country, and I've seen too much of Sperry's kind. Europe is full of
them."

The tenseness in Holcomb returned. "What did you see?" he asked
grimly.

"No more than I expected," returned the butler. "The doctor is a
snake--and Miss Margaret is young and pretty; well--he would have
kissed her--but I announced luncheon."

Holcomb caught his breath. "And she was willing?" he asked, looking
sternly at Blakeman.

"Willing! She was frightened to death."

Holcomb threw up his head with a jerk--his clenched fists rigid on the
log.

"I'm telling you this," Blakeman went on, not waiting for him to
reply, "because I believe you can help. I have always made it a
rule in service to keep silent, no matter what passes in a family. I
meddled once at Ostend in an affair of the like of this, and it taught
me a lesson. There'll be trouble here if things go on like this--maybe
later a divorce--and a divorce is the devil in a family like Mr.
Thayo