Immediately after dinner Margaret went to her room, got into a negligé, and sitting down to her writing-desk, began a letter to Walter.

She stated the case of the Leitzel coal lands under the guise of Western gold mines and asked her brother-in-law to give her all possible light on the legality of the case for the benefit of the "grandmother."

"If the laws governing such a case differ greatly in the different states," she wrote, "please give me all the general information on the subject that you can. This is a very important matter to me, Walter, though I can't tell you why; nor can I explain to you why I consult you rather than Daniel on a question of law. The fact is, I am preparing a little surprise for Daniel."

At this point in her letter she paused, resting her elbow on her desk and her head on her hand. "Walter will see right through my disguises and subterfuges," she reflected. "He will understand perfectly what the surprise is that I am preparing for Daniel. And in his reply he will undoubtedly tell me what the law of Pennsylvania is governing such a case as I've outlined. Well," she drearily sighed, "I can't help it if he does see through it, I can't be a party to defrauding that old woman, as I would be if I consented to live here on money that ought to be hers."

She took up her pen again and dipped it into her ink, but the bedroom door opened and Daniel entered.

She looked so pretty in the dainty pink negligé which she wore, and with her abundant dark hair hanging in two heavy braids down her back, that Daniel, despite the coldness which had prevailed at dinner, came to her side, put his bony arm about her shoulders and patted her bare arm.

"Writing to Walter, I see," he remarked; and quickly she covered her letter with a blotter.

"Yes," she answered.

"Glad you are. I've not yet got an answer out of him. Are you, my dear, repenting of your unwifely behaviour and writing to him what I want you to?"

"I'm doing what I consider my wifely duty, yes."

"Good! I knew I'd get my sweet girl back again! Let me see what you've written. All this!" he exclaimed, reaching across the desk to pick up her letter; but Margaret, looking at him in startled amazement, held him off.

"I haven't said you could read my letter, Daniel."

"Do you have secrets from me, Margaret?"

"Do you have any from me, Daniel?"

"That's neither here nor there. Come, let me see your letter, my dear!"

"I don't wish to. Why do you want to?"

"You are writing something to your brother-in-law you don't want me to know about?" he accused her, his narrow gaze piercing her.

Margaret quickly decided to resort to guile.

"Daniel," she smiled upon him, "I'm preparing a little surprise for you."

"A surprise?" he repeated suspiciously.

"Yes. Now, while I am finishing my letter, I want you to do something for me. Will you?"

"What?"

"Is there any way of finding out by telephone or telegraph," she asked, her eyes big and sad, her lips drooping, "whether your poor mother is by this time safe at home? I shan't sleep a wink to-night from worrying over that half-mile walk she had to take after dark!"

"She didn't have to take the half-mile walk. I arranged for that. I gave her a quarter to pay for a 'bus ride from the station to her house and I 'phoned to Abe Schwenck to meet her train with the 'bus. Could I have done more?"

"You really did all that?" she asked, her face lighting up with relief.

"I did all that. So you see I'm not 'cruel' and hard-hearted. I did all that for one who is no relation to me and has no claim on me."

"The claim of gratitude?" Margaret suggested; "or of mere humanity?"

"As for gratitude, haven't we repaid her for her ten years' service for us by our thirty years of taking care of her?"

"Taking care of her?"

"We've never charged her a cent of rent for the only home she has had for thirty years."

"Why wouldn't you let her stay here to-night?"

"Because we don't want to start that kind of thing, or she'd be here on our hands all the time. Once we take her in, we'll never be able to shake her off, and we don't want her."

"I see."

"Of course you see. Now give me a kiss, and promise me you will turn over a new leaf and not be so stubborn about the care of the babies and about Catherine Hamilton and about all the other little matters in which you tease me so that I've got indigestion!" he said fretfully.

"I act only as I must, Daniel," said Margaret sadly. "It gives me worse than indigestion!"

"Look at Hiram's Lizzie! She never antagonizes the girls the way you do!" he complained, genuine anxiety in his voice.

"She doesn't live with them."

"Well, but don't you see that's where we have the advantage over Hiram? They'll get more attached to our children because they'll see more of them. If you acted toward my sisters as you should, as your duty to me and to your children requires that you should, they might leave nearly all they have to our children, giving Hira............