see that he has a good lawyer to help in his defense."

"If that savage old man remains stubborn, Hester must be here."

"If the thing goes to a trial, Betty will have to appear against
him."

"Well, it mustn't go to a trial, that's all."

That night two letters went out from Leauvite, one to Hester Craigmile
at Aberdeen, Scotland, and one to the other end of the earth, where
Larry Kildene waited for news of Harry King, there on the mountain
top. On the first of each month Larry rode down to the nearest point
where letters could be sent, making a three days' trip on horseback.
His first trip brought nothing, because Harry had not sent his first
letter in time to reach the station before Larry was well on his way
back up the mountain. He would not delay his return, for fear of
leaving the two women too long alone.

After Harry's departure, Madam Manovska had grown restless, and once
had wandered so far away as to cause them great alarm and a long
search, when she was found, sitting close to the fall, apparently too
weak and too dazed to move. This had so awakened Amalia's fears that
she never allowed her mother to leave the cabin alone, but always on
one pretext or another accompanied her.

The situation was a difficult one for them all. If Amalia took her
mother away to some town, as she wished to do, she feared for Madam
Manovska's sanity when she could not find her husband. And still, when
she tried to tell her mother of her father's death, she could not
convince her of its truth. For a while she would seem to understand
and believe it, but after a night's rest she would go back to the old
weary repetition of going to her husband and his need of her. Then it
was all to go over again, day after day, until at last Amalia gave up,
and allowed her mother the comfort of her belief: but all the more she
had to invent pretexts for keeping her on the mountain. So she
accepted Larry's kindly advice and his earnestly offered hospitality
and his comforting companionship, and remained, as, perforce, there
was nothing else for her to do.

CHAPTER XXXIII

HESTER CRAIGMILE RECEIVES HER LETTER

The letters reached their opposite destinations at about the same
time. The one to Amalia closely buttoned in Larry's pocket, and the
short one to himself which he read and reread as his horse slowly
climbed the trail, were halfway up the mountain when the postboy
delivered Hester Craigmile's at the door of the sedate brick