When again, the next morning, Daniel was obliged to arise betimes and start up the fires, he felt a little regretfully that perhaps he had been a bit hasty in discharging the capable, if impertinent, Amanda.

"She was never impertinent to me," Margaret replied to his reason for sending away her excellent maid. "And of course she did perfectly right in refusing to take orders from Jennie that were directly contrary to mine."

"But from me?"

"But you say you told her she must obey your sisters even when that meant disobeying me. But there! I won't discuss it! Be sure, however, that I shall take steps to protect myself against an interference with my affairs that upsets my household. I shall instruct my next maid that when Jennie and Sadie appear, she's to stand by her job and 'phone for the police!"

After breakfast that morning Daniel decided that he would not depart for his office until he had "had it out" with his brother-in-law.

But Walter's ideas as to the obligations of hospitality differed rather widely from Daniel's. As a guest in Daniel's house, he could not transact the business he meant that day to put through. So he declined emphatically his host's invitation to come with him to the sitting-room to "talk business."

"At your office, Mr. Leitzel."

Daniel's insistence that it suited him better to have it over right here, "without any further procrastination," did not move Walter from his persistent refusal to discuss their affairs under this roof. He felt rather sure that in any business discussion he might have with Daniel Leitzel he would be tempted to use language which a gentleman cannot use to his host. After the interview, he intended to take his suit-case and go to the Cocalico Hotel.

Arrived at Leitzel's private office (Daniel feeling not at all amiable at being forced to this second futile postponement of the adjustment which surely Eastman must realize was inevitable) Walter stretched himself out lazily in a comfortable chair by the window, lit a cigar, and waited complacently for Daniel to open up fire.

So Daniel, feeling strong in the righteousness of his cause, outlined elaborately his plan to improve Berkeley Hill and rent it for the benefit of the joint owners; or, if Walter and Harriet preferred, he would take a mortgage against Harriet's half of the estate.

Walter heard him through without a word of comment.

"I wish," Daniel finally concluded, "to begin work on the place at once to make it marketable. Can you give me the names and addresses of any reliable contractors of Charleston?"

"Plenty of them."

"Good," said Daniel, taking from his pocket a notebook and pencil. "Well?"

"But it is quite useless for you to write to a contractor," said Walter, blowing a long line of smoke from his mouth: "first, because Mrs. Eastman would not consent to mortgage away her half of Berkeley Hill; secondly, neither Margaret nor my wife would consent to such alterations as you propose, which would indeed quite ruin the place; thirdly, Margaret wishes her sister to continue to live at Berkeley Hill."

The cool effrontery of this latter made Daniel stare.

"And you," he sharply demanded, "wouldn't you feel a little more comfortable if you paid rent for the house you live in?"

"But why," smiled Walter, "should my 'feeling' in the matter interest you?"

"Bluff and impudence won't carry you through when I'm on the job, Eastman! You'll have to come to terms or get into trouble. We'll seize your wife's half of the estate for back rent, and then you'll have nothing, whereas as I propose to work this thing——"

"Your methods of 'working' business deals, Leitzel, are perfectly familiar to me and I prefer to have nothing to do with them."

"You prefer to continue to live in Margaret's house without in any way compensating her? Well, I warn you, I don't intend to stand for it. Since you take the stand you do, I'll make you pay rent for the past year and a half!"

"Margaret didn't tell me she had given you power of attorney over her property. I happen to know that she and my wife have a perfectly good understanding as to Berkeley Hill. It isn't at all necessary for you and me to discuss it."

"Oh, yes, it is, unless you want me to——"

"There is a much more important matter," Walter interposed, "that we need to discuss."

Daniel's sharp little eyes bored into his like two gimlets. "Eh? What?"

"The case of your step-mother's right to one third of her husband's estate."

"What do you mean?"

"Your wife's conscience, which you will of course think quixotic, but which I, being of her own class and kind and country, quite understand, will not permit her to live on money gotten by the defrauding of a helpless and ignorant old woman; nor will she consent to her children's inheriting such dishonest money. I must tell you this morning, Mr. Leitzel, that you and your sisters and brother must at once restore to your step-mother what is her own, or I will bring suit for her."

Daniel, though looking white, nevertheless answered quite steadily: "My step-mother is a New Mennonite; they do not sue at the law."

"But get others to sue for them."

"Did Margaret send for you to come up North for this?" Daniel demanded, a steel coldness in his voice and look.

"She did not send for me at all. I came to see her on quite another matter—connected with the Berkeley Hill estate."

"Indeed? But she has given you these data which you are using as blackmail, has she, as to my father's widow, her religion, her rights, her wrongs, her ignorance, and so forth?"

"Margaret has not once mentioned to me your father's widow."

"Then what do you mean? How do you know Margaret objects to the source of my wealth? And what's your authority for all the rest of your bluff?"

"I know she objects to the source of your wealth because I know her, as you, Leitzel, could not know her if you lived with her through three lifetimes, since you are not, as I've already intimated, of her race or class or country. I learned all the facts—the facts, notice—as to the illegal withholding from your step-mother of her share of her husband's estate entirely through surmise."

"'Surmise?' You surmised them! How extraordinarily perspicuous! It's rather surprising so sharp a lawyer has not made more of a success of himself, eh?"

"Your idea of success and mine would differ as widely as does your understanding and mine of your wife. To get down to business, Mr. Leitzel, you must at once restore to your step-mother her share in her husband's estate, or we bring suit."

"'We?' Who?"

"I, for the old woman."

"And what," Daniel asked, his lips stiff, "do you think you are going to get out of this?"

"A reasonable fee."

"Margaret authorizes you to say all this to me?"

"She doesn't know I'm saying it. Has no least idea I meant to say it."

"Oh, so you are acting independently, as a counterstroke to save yourself from being forced to pay rent for the good home you and your family enjoy?".

"I am acting independently of Margaret anyway," returned Walter, quite unruffled.

"Margaret will forbid it!"

"If I were not taking up this case with you this morning, Leitzel, Margaret would herself, I am confident, put it into the hands of another lawyer, who might not be so interested as I am in keeping it out of the newspapers. Margaret would probably bungle the thing and get herself into a mess of trouble, so I've decided I'd better do it for her and do it with a minimum of fuss and worry for her."

"She has tol............