e boy by
fair means, I won't by foul," he told himself; so instead of offering
himself, he talked about the weather; "and--and I want you to know that
Johnny shall be put down for something handsome in my will. It won't be
suspicious. Everybody in Old Chester knows that I like him--living here
at my gates; though he has the devil of a temper! Bad thing. Very bad
thing. He should control it. I've always controlled mine."

Miss Lydia felt a sudden wave of pity; he was so helpless, and she was
so powerful--and so lucky! All she said, in her breathless voice, was
that he "was very kind--about the will."

Johnny's grandfather, looking into her sweet, blue eyes, suddenly
said--and with no thought whatever of Johnny--"I wish I was twenty years
younger!" The wistful genuineness of that was the nearest he came to
asking her to marry him. He went home feeling, as he walked up to his
great, empty house, very old and forlorn, and yet relieved that he had
not offered an affront to Miss Lydia nor, incidentally, made a fool of
himself. Then he thought with the old, hot anger, of Carl Robertson, and
with a dreary impatience of his daughter; it was their doing that he
couldn't own his own grandson! "Well, the boy shall have his
grandfather's money," he said to himself, stumbling a little as he went
up the flight of granite steps to his front door. "Every bit of it! I
don't care whether people think things or not. Damn 'em, let them think!
What difference does it make? Robertson can go to hell." He was so
dulled that, for the moment, he forgot that if Robertson went to hell
Mary would have to go, too. Later that night his tired mind cleared, and
he knew it wouldn't do to let Johnny have his "grandfather's" money, and
that even Mr. Smith's money must be bestowed with caution.

"I'll leave a bequest that won't compromise Mary, but she and Robertson
must somehow do the rest. I'll send for her next week and tell her what
to do; and then I'll fix up a codicil."

But next week he said _next_ week; and after that he thought,
listlessly, that he wasn't equal to seeing her. "She's fond of
Robertson--I can't stand that! I never forgive."

So he didn't send for his daughter. But a week later William King
did. . . .

"I suppose I've got to go?" Mary told her husband, looking up from the
doctor's telegram with scared eyes.

"It wouldn't be decent not to," he said.

"But _he_ is right there, by the gate! I might see him. Oh--I don't
dare!"