"Brady, I hope you'll forgive me for saying something harsh and disrespectful about your grandfather, but here goes. He played you a shabby trick in taking Anne away from you in the first place. No matter how shabbily Anne behaved toward you, he was worse than she. Then he virtually compelled you to perform an operation that—well, I'll not say it. We can forgive him for that. He was suffering. And then he went out of his way to leave that old house down there to Anne, knowing full well that if she continued to live in it, it would be a sort of prison to her. She can't sell it, she can't rent it. She's got to live in it, or abandon it altogether. I call it a pretty mean sort of trick to play on her, if you'll forgive my—" "She doesn't have to live in it," said Thorpe doggedly. "She is going to live there until you take her out of it, bodily if you please, and you are going to become so all-fired sorry for her that you'll—" "Good Lord, Simmy," shouted Thorpe, springing to his feet with a bitter imprecation, "don't go on like this. I can't stand it. I know how she hates it. I know how frightened, how miserable she is down there. It _is_ a prison,—no, worse than that, it is haunted by something that you cannot possibly—My God, it must be awful for her, all alone,—shivering, listening,—something crawly—something sinister and accusing—Why, she—" "Here, here, old fellow!" cried Simmy in alarm. "Don't go off your nut. You're talking like a crazy man,—and, hang it all, I don't like the look in your eye. Gosh, if it gives you the creeps—who don't have to be down there of nights,—what must it be for that shrinking, sensitive—Hey! Where are you going?" "I'm going down there to see her. I'm going to tell her that I was a cur to write what I did to her the day I sailed. I—" He stopped short near the door, and faced his friend. His hands were clenched. "I shall see her just this once,—never again if I can avoid it," he said. "Just to tell her that I don't want her to live in that house. She's got to get out. I'll not know a moment's peace until she is out of that house." Simmy heard the door slam and a few minutes later the opening and closing of the elevator cage. He sat quite still, looking out over the trees. He was a rather pathetic figure. "I wonder if I'd be so loyal to him if I had a chance myself," he mused. "Oh, Lordy, Lordy!" He closed his eyes as if in pain. CHAPTER XXVIII