od by Walter when your friends the Eliotts, my child, turned
their virtuous backs on him--when none of his own people, even, would
lend him a helping hand. It was Lawson Hannay who saved him."

"Saved him?"

"Saved him. Moved heaven and earth to get him out of that woman's
clutches."

Anne shook her head, and put her hands over her eyes to dispel her vision
of him. Edith laughed.

"You can't see Mr. Hannay moving heaven?"

"No, really I can't."

"Well, _I_ saw him. At least, if he didn't move heaven, he moved earth.
When nothing else could shake her hold, he bought her off."

"Bought--her--off?"

"Yes, bought her--paid her money to go. And she went."

"He owes him money, then?"

"Money, and a great many other things beside. You don't like it?"

"I can't bear it."

"Of course you can't. It hurts your pride. It hurt mine badly. But my
pride has had to go down in the dust before Lawson Hannay."

Anne raised her head as if she refused to lower her pride an inch to him.
She was trying to put the whole episode behind her, as it had come before
her. She had nothing whatever to do with it. Edith, of course, had to be
grateful. _She_ was not bound by the same obligation. But she was
determined that they should be quit of the Hannays. She would make Walter
pay back that money.

Meanwhile Edith's eyes filled with tears at the recollection. "Lawson
Hannay may not have been a very good man himself--I believe at one time
he wasn't. But he loved his friend, and he didn't want to see him going
the same way."

"The same way? That means that, if it hadn't been for Mr. Hannay, he
would never have met her."

"Mr. Hannay did his best to prevent his meeting her. He knew what she
was, and Walter didn't. He took him off in his yacht for weeks at a time,
to get him out of her way. When she followed him he brought him back.
When she persecuted him--well, I've told you what he did."

Anne lifted her hand in supplication, and rose and went to the open
window, as if, after that recital, she thirsted for fresh air. Edith
smiled, in spite of herself, at her sister-in-law's repudiation of the
subject.

"Poor Mr. Hannay," said she, "the worst you can say of him now is that he
eats and drinks a little more than's good for him."

"And that he's married a wife who sets him the example," said Anne,
returning from the window-sill refreshed.

"She keeps him straight, dear."

"Edith! I shall never understand you. You're angelically