Mrs. Champney was writing. She pushed aside the pad and, moving her chair, faced him. Octavius noted the uncompromising tone of voice when she bade him enter, and the hard-set lines of her face as she turned inquiringly towards him. For a moment his courage flagged; then the righteousness of his cause triumphed. He closed the door behind him. This was not his custom, and Mrs. Champney looked her surprise. "Anything unusual, Octavius?" "I want a talk with you, Mrs. Champney." "Sit down then." She motioned to a chair; but Octavius shook his head. "I can say all I've got to say standing; it ain't much, but it's to the point." Mrs. Champney removed her glasses and swung them leisurely back and forth on their gold chain. "Well, to the point, then." He felt the challenge implied in her words and accepted it. "I've served this estate pretty faithful for hard on to thirty-seven years. I've served the Judge, and I've served his son, and now I'm going to work to save the man that's named for that son--" Mrs. Champney interrupted him sharply, decisively. "That will do, Octavius. There is no occasion for you to tell me this; I knew from the first you would champion his cause--no matter how bad a one. We'll drop the subject; you must be aware it is not a particularly pleasant one to me." Octavius winced. Mrs. Champney smiled at the effect of her words; but he ignored her remark. "I like to see fair play, Mrs. Champney, and I've seen some things here in Champo since the old Judge died that's gone against me. Right's right and wrong's wrong, and I've stood by and kept still when I'd ought to have spoken; perhaps 't would have been better for us all if I had--and I'm including Champney Googe. When his father died--" Mrs. Champney started, leaned forward in her chair, her hands tightly grasping the arms. "His father--" she caught up her words, pressed her thin lips more closely together, and leaned back again in her chair. Octavius looked at her in amazement. "Yes," he repeated, "his father, Warren Googe; who else should I mean?" Mrs. Champney made no reply, and Octavius went on, wetting his lips to facilitate articulation, for his throat was going dry: "His father made me promise to look out for the child that was a-coming; and another man, Louis Champney, your husband,"--Mrs. Champney sat up rigid, her eyes fixed in a stare upon the speaker's lips,--"told me when the boy come that he'd father him as was fatherless--" She interrupted him again, a sneering smile on her lips: "You know as well as I, Octavius Buzzby, what Mr. Champney's will was--too feeble a thing to place dependence on for any length of time; if he said that, he didn't mean it--not as you think he did," she added in a tone that sent a shiver along Octavius' spine. But he did not intend to be "downed," as he said to himself, "not this time by Almeda Champney." He continued undaunted: