On Mr. McDonald, the news of his son-in-law’s failure fell like a thunderbolt and affected him more than it did Daisy. Shrewd, ambitious and scheming, he had for years planned for his daughter a moneyed marriage, and now she was returned upon his hands for an indefinite time, with her naturally luxurious tastes intensified by recent indulgence, and her husband a ruined man. It was not a pleasant picture to contemplate, and Mr. McDonald’s face was cloudy and thoughtful for many days, until a letter from Tom turned his thoughts into a new channel and sent him with fresh avidity to certain points of law with which he had of late years been familiar. If there was one part of his profession in which he excelled more than another it was in the divorce cases which had made Indiana so notorious. Squire McDonald, as he was called, was well known to that class of people who, utterly ignoring God’s command, seek to free themselves from the bonds which once were so pleasant to wear, and as he sat alone in his office with Tom’s letter in his hand, and read how rapidly that young man was getting rich, there came into his mind a plan, the very thought of which would have made Guy Thornton shudder with horror and disgust. Daisy had not been altogether satisfied with her brief married life, and it would be very easy to make her more dissatisfied, especially as the home to which she would return must necessarily be very different from Elmwood. Tom was destined to be a millionaire. There was no doubt of that, and he could be moulded and managed as Mr. McDonald had never been able to mould or manage Guy. But everything pertaining to Tom must be kept carefully out of sight, for the man knew his daughter would never lend herself to such a diabolical scheme as that which he was revolving, and which he at once put in progress, managing so adroitly that before Daisy was at all aware of what she was doing, she found herself the heroine of a divorce suit, founded really upon nothing but a general dissatisfaction with married life, and a wish to be free from it. Something there was about incompatibility of temperament and uncongeniality and all that kind of thing which wicked men and women parade before the world when weary of the tie which God has said shall not be torn asunder.