“_You had to fight for two_; God help me, Richardia--if I had known that----” She rose quickly and came to stand beside his chair. “If you had known it, you would have been the strong one, Vance, dear. I know it; I knew it all the time; but I--was afraid--to trust--myself. You are not going away, now, are you?” There was the sound of an opening and closing door and the stumping of the professor’s crutch on the bare floor of the hall. Tregarvon sprang up and took the small black-gowned figure in his arms. “Going away?” he broke out passionately; “you couldn’t drive me away with an axe! I’m going to stay forever, and let you make a complete man of me. We’ll _marry_ your father’s share of the Ocoee back to him, and together we’ll make a man of your brother. There are a million other things to say, but Hartridge is coming to look for his chauffeur and I must take him back to Highmount. Richardia--sweetheart!... If I don’t wreck the car on the way it will be a miracle.” Very gently she disengaged herself. “You--you needn’t smother a person,” she protested, with the quaint little grimace that he loved. And then: “That is father, calling me to go to brother. Please heap some more coals of fire and be good to Professor Billy--for the sake of his loyalty to me and mine.... Yes, daddy, dear; I’m coming.” TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been corrected.