brant, it seemed, was
out of town; Mrs. Wybrant, then, would do. The maid, having delivered
the message, had returned to say her mistress would be down presently
and the caller was to wait, please. Waiting, he had had opportunity to
contrast the present settings with those he had just quitted. Perhaps
the contrast between them appeared all the greater by reason of the
freshness of his recollection of the physical surroundings at the scene
of his first visit of that evening.

She came down soon, wearing a loose, frilly, wrapperlike garment which
hid her figure. Approaching maternity had not softened her face, had not
given to it the glorified Madonna look. Rather it had drawn her features
to haggardness and put in her eyes a look of sharpened apprehension as
though dread of the nearing ordeal of suffering and danger overrode the
hope which, along with the new life, was quick within her. She greeted
Judge Priest with a matter-of-fact directness. Her expression plainly
enough told him she was at a loss to account for his coming.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said in her rather metallic fashion of speaking,
"that Dallam isn't here. But he was called to St. Louis this morning on
business. I hope you will pardon my receiving you in negligee. I'm not
seeing much company at present. The maid, though, said the business was
imperative."

"Yes, ma'am, it is," answered Judge Priest, rather ceremoniously for
him, "and I am grateful to you fur lettin' me see you and I don't aim to
detain you very long. I kin tell you in a few words whut it is that has
brought me."

He was as good as his promise--he did tell her in a few words. Outlining
his suggestion, he used much the same language which he had used once
already that night. He did not tell her, though, he had come to her
direct from her mother. He did not tell her he had been to her mother at
all. It might have been inferred that his present hearer was the first
to hear that which now he set forth.

"Well, ma'am," he concluded, "that's the condition ez I view it. And if
you likewise see your way clear to view it ez I do the whole thing kin
be accomplished with the scratch of a pen. And you'll have the
satisfaction of knowin' that through your act your mother will be well
provided fur fur the rest of her life." He added a final argument, being
moved thereto perhaps by the fact that she had heard him without change
of expression and with no glance which might be interpreted as approval