Braden, seated opposite him, his elbows on the arms of the chair, leaned forward and watched the old man curiously. A new light had come into his eyes when Mr. Thorpe uttered those amazing words—"but because I love _you_." He was beginning to see, he was beginning to analyse the old man's motives, he was groping his way out of the fog. "You will have hard work to convince me that I have not been treated most unfairly, most vilely," said he, his lips still compressed. "Many years ago," said Mr. Thorpe, fixing his gaze on the lazy fire, "I asked Anne's grandmother to marry me. I suppose I thought that I was unalterably in love with her. I was the very rich son of a very rich man, and—pardon my conceit—what you would call an exceedingly good catch. Well, in those days things were not as they are now. The young lady, a great beauty and amazingly popular, happened to be in love with Roger Blair, a good-looking chap with no fortune and no prospects. She took the advice of her mother and married the man she loved, disdaining my riches and me as well. Roger wasn't much of a success as a husband, but he was a source of enlightenment and education to his wife. Not in the way you would suspect, however. He managed in very short order to convince her that it is a very ignorant mother who permits her daughter to marry a man without means. They hadn't been married three years when his wife had learned her lesson. It was too late to get rid of Roger, and by that time I was happily married to a girl who was quite as rich as I, and could afford to do as she pleased. So, you see, Anne's grandmother had to leave me out of the case, even though Roger would have been perfectly delighted to have given her sufficient grounds for divorce. I think you knew Anne's grandmother, Braden?" He paused for an answer, a sly, appraising look in his eyes. Receiving no response except a slight nod of the head, he chuckled softly and went on with the history.