"Now," said Jean triumphantly, "we are ready for a nice long talk, that is, if you feel equal to the task of talking. What I have to say will not take long. It is about a little interview between Mr. Allison and--Judge Thorn's daughter, and if I had been less of a 'crank,' I suppose you would have had another son-in-law in prospect." "Yes?" questioned the judge. "Then I have been mistaken when I have thought at times that you cared for him." Jean remained silent a few minutes, then looked up quickly into her father's face. "You are my best, my dearest friend, father. I will tell you truly. You have not been mistaken. I love Gilbert Allison, and I cannot help it to save my life." When Judge Thorn spoke again his voice had changed somewhat. He spoke as if his words were escaping from beneath a weight. "Better than you do me, Jean?" She did not answer at once; then she caught her father's eye, and smiled as she said: "You want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" "Go on," was the judge's quiet reply. "Then it is 'yes,' father." A shadow passed over the face of the judge for an instant that carried Jean back to her childhood days, when she used to wonder, as she mused, why it was that her father always looked so sad. "You have all the sweet ways of your mother, child," said the old man; "and in you I know the traits and intellect that I had hoped to nurture in the boy. For years you have been my comrade--my best loved daughter. I am growing old, now, quite old, and you must leave me." As he spoke he ran his fingers through his hair, as if in its thinness and fading color he could discern advancing years. Jean caught the hand that hung over the arm of the chair between her two and pressed it to her cheek. "You make me happy, father!" she whispered. "Do you remember long ago I told you that you would some day be glad I was your boy? And so you are. Perhaps it is because I am so like you--I only wish I knew I was--or perhaps I have always loved you best, and yet I have not loved you enough, father." "Yes, child. Yes, enough to drive away a grief and make me happy." "Then, remember, father; remember always and forever, that I do not love you any less. If I have come to love another more, I tell you truly, I cannot help it. It has come to me--just come and--come and come; and I have fought it every step of the way. A few times I have pictured to myself such a man as I might some time call my husband. He has been learned and clean and upright, with an irrepressible spirit of patriotism, hindered by no party ties that bind to money instead of moral questions; daunted by no fear, and bound by no memory of a past; and the man has come, and he is--a gentlemanly liquor dealer. But I will not leave you, father. I have no thought other than to stay here." This information did not seem to impress the judge. "You say so, Jean. You mean so; but you will be married, and a wife's duties come before a daughter's."