Miss Schuyler was not deficient in courage of one kind, and she looked at him steadily. "I came down to speak to you because it seemed your due," she said, "but I have no intention of listening to any jibes at my friends." Torrance made her a little half-respectful and half-ironical inclination. "Then will you be good enough to answer my question?" "Though most of the few meetings were accidental, I went with Hetty intentionally on two occasions because it seemed fitting." "It seemed fitting that a girl should betray her father to the man who wanted to ruin him, supply him with the dollars that helped him in his scheme, and, more than all, warn him of each move we made! Well, my standard is not very high, but the most cruel blow I have had to bear was the discovery that my daughter had fallen so far." The hoarseness of his voice, and the sight of the damp upon his forehead, had a calming effect upon Miss Schuyler. Her anger against the old man had given place to pity, for she decided that what had passed would have excited most men's suspicions, and it was not in Hetty's defence alone she made an effort to undeceive him. "I am going to answer you plainly, and I think an examination of Hetty's cheque-book and the money she left behind will bear me out," she said. "Once only did Hetty give Mr. Grant any dollars--fifty of them, I think, to feed some hungry children. He would not take them until she assured him that they were a part of a small annuity left her by her mother, and that not one of them came from you. I also know that Mr. Grant allowed his friends to suspect him of being bribed by you sooner than tell them where he obtained the dollars in question. The adventurer dealt most honourably with you. Your daughter twice disclosed your plans, once when Clavering had plotted Grant's arrest, and again when had she not done so it would most assuredly have led to the destruction of the cattle-train. Mr. Clavering came near making a horrible blunder on that occasion, and but for Hetty's warning not a head of your stock would have reached Omaha." Her tone carried conviction with it, as did the flash in her eyes, but Torrance's smile was sardonic. "You would try to persuade me Larry saved the train out of goodwill to us?" "He did it, knowing what it was going to cost him, to prevent the men he led starting on a course of outrage and lawlessness." "And they have paid him for it!" "I fancy that is outside the question," said Miss Schuyler. "Twice, when every good impulse that is in our kind laid her under compulsion, Hetty warned the man she loved, but at no other time did a word to your prejudice pass her lips; and if she had spoken it Grant would not have listened. Hetty was loyal, and he treated you with a fairness that none of you merited. You sent the Sheriff a bribe and an order for his arrest, and by inadvertence it fell into his hands. He brought it back here unopened at his peril."