“We’re all deceived sometimes, David,” said the doctor soothingly, watching him with his keen skillful look, “we’re not omniscient; if we were, there’d be a lot more folks in jail, I reckon. I wouldn’t take it to heart; Jacob was on his own responsibility; they can’t blame you.” “They ought to,” declared the colonel passionately. “I’m an old man, I’m his relative; it was my business to know what he was doing. And there’s poor Jinny! I wanted her to come here, so did Diana, and you packed her off to a sanitarium.” “To be sure,” said Dr. Cheyney grimly; “there’s no need of having three lunatics instead of one. Jinny’s nerves were about wrecked, she needs quiet, and she’ll come out well enough; it’s not Jinny I’m worried about. You let Jacob go, don’t you shoulder Jacob; no one thinks you’re to blame!” Colonel Royall let his clenched hand fall on the arm of his chair. “The disgrace of it!” he said, and his lips trembled. “I’ve had my share of disgrace, William!” Dr. Cheyney rose abruptly and walked to the window. Through the open shutter he could see, from this side of the house, the distant river, and near at hand was a tall jingo tree, yellow as gold with autumn. The other trees stood half naked against the sky. Below him a few white chickens strayed on the lawn unrebuked. “You see more of the river since the railroad cut that last crossing,” Colonel Royall remarked irrelevantly, “and have you noticed how late the jingo stays in leaf? It was so the year that--” He stopped. The doctor turned and fixed an irate eye upon him. Colonel Royall was leaning forward, his eyes fixed absently on the window, yet he had felt instinctively the doctor’s attitude. “It may be folly,” he pleaded, as if in extenuation, “but I don’t want the place changed; it was like this when she was happy here and”--his head sank lower--“I’ve got to sell it! I’ve got to sell it--oh, my God!” The doctor went over and took hold of him. “Davy!” he said fiercely, “Davy, you’ve got to get out of here! I’m glad it’s to be sold; have done with it! You’ve got to eat and drink and sleep or you’ll--” He stopped, his hands still on his old friend’s, for Colonel Royall had slipped gently into unconsciousness, and lay white and helpless in the high-backed chair. XXVII IT was late that night before Dr. Cheyney drove away from Broad Acres. Colonel Royall had rallied a little, and the doctor and the servants had put him to bed, not in the Shut Room, but in his own old four-poster that had belonged to his mother. Before the doctor went away he had sent for a trained nurse and received and answered telegrams for Diana, who would not leave her father. At half-past ten the old doctor drove up to his own door, overtaxed and weary. As he climbed down from his old buggy his quick eye detected a brighter light than usual in his study window, and Miss Lucinda Colfax met him at the door.