“Don’t! Don’t what? Did you expect I was going to hear a thing like that from you and--and grin? Did you expect I was going to purr and say I liked it! You--_you_, by the Lord! the girl I swore by and depended on--a Townsend, too--waiting until I was out of the way and then crawling on your hands and knees after that--oh, what shall I call him? The young--” Again she stopped him. “Don’t! Don’t!” she cried once more. “You mustn’t say those things.... Uncle Foster, I am going to marry him.” Again he was stricken speechless. He stared open-mouthed. Then he put his hand to his forehead. “She’s gone crazy,” he muttered. “I believe she has; I swear I do! Esther, for heaven’s sake, let’s--” “No, no, I mean it, Uncle Foster. I have made up my mind. I am going to marry Bob. That is,” with a wan smile, “if he will have me now, after all this.” For a long instant they looked each other in the eyes. Then he drew a deep breath. “If I thought you meant that,” he said, slowly. “If I thought for one minute you really meant it--” He paused. Her anger seemed to have gone and her color with it, but there was no hesitation or lack of firmness in her reply. “I do,” she said. “Oh, I know you will never forgive me. Perhaps I am ungrateful and wicked--I can’t tell. I do love you, Uncle Foster, indeed I do! In spite of the mean, deceitful tricks you have played to keep Bob and me apart and to gain your own way. I love you in spite of them, I can’t help it. But I love him more. I know now that he is more to me than all the rest of the world. And, if he will have me, I shall marry him.” There was another interval. Then he put a hand on her arm and led her across the room to the easy-chair by the window. “You sit down there, Esther,” he said, quietly. “You just sit there and rest and calm down. You’ve had a lot on your mind lately and you got mad with me because you thought I was hiding things from you, and--well, your nerves have gone to pieces. You just stay there for a while, or lie down and take a nap or something. When I come back to-night, if it isn’t too late, you and I will have a nice, sensible talk. If not, we will in the morning. I am going to forget all the nonsense you’ve just said and I want you to.” “It isn’t nonsense.” “I know, I know. Well, it will seem like nonsense by and by, after you’ve thought it over.... There, there! Be a good girl. I’ll send Nabby up with some hot tea or something. Tea is good for nerves, so folks say. Now I’m off for the lawyers. See you later.” She called to him. He turned. “Eh? Yes?” he queried. She was sitting quietly in the chair, her hands in her lap, and the sunlight glistening upon her wet cheeks. She was looking at him steadily--and, it seemed to him, longingly. Yet all she said was: “Good-by, Uncle Foster.” “Eh? Oh, yes! Well, good-by.” CHAPTER XX