"Yes, father, I haven't treated him right. I came away without telling him." Judge Blair scowled and turned away, and bit the end of his cigar. Then he sat and studied it. Lavinia waited; she was ready for the final contest. Presently the judge arose. "Well, dear," he said. "Well--we'll see; of course, we can't go back just yet--I have my address to read to-morrow, and besides, some of the boys are talking of me for president of the Bar Association. And I had thought, I had thought, that a little trip over to Detroit, and maybe up to Mackinac--" "Father," said Lavinia, looking at him now calmly, "I don't want to go to Detroit or up to Mackinac. I'll do, of course, as you say; I'll wait until the Bar meeting is over, but I want to go home. You might as well know now, father--we might as well understand each other--it can be no other way." Judge Blair looked at his daughter a moment, and she kept her eyes directly and firmly in his. "Oh well," he said with a sigh, "of course, dear, if you say. I'd like to stay until after the election though. Will you?" "Of course," she consented. CHAPTER XI MACOCHEE Marley had not learned of Lavinia's departure until Monday afternoon; he had the news from Lawrence, who had it from the hackman who had taken Judge Blair and Lavinia to the train; for whenever any of the quality go away from Macochee they always ride to the station in the hack, though at other times they walk without difficulty all over the town. When Marley reached the office, and found Wade Powell, as he usually found him, sitting with his feet on his table, smoking and reading a Cincinnati paper, the lawyer looked up casually, but when he saw Marley's expression he suddenly exclaimed: "Hello! What's the matter?" Marley shook his head. "Something's troubling you," said Powell. Marley shook his head again, and Powell looked at him as at a witness he was cross-examining. "I know better," he said. Marley affected to busy himself at his desk, but after a while, he turned about and said: "Something is troubling me, Mr. Powell; my--prospects." He had been on the point of confessing his real trouble, but with the very words on his lips, he could not utter them, and so let the conversation take another turn. "Oh, prospects!" said Powell. "I can tell you all about prospects; I've had more than any man in Gordon County. When I was your age, opinion was unanimous in this community that my prospects were the most numerous and the most brilliant of any one here!" Powell laughed, a little bitterly. "If I'd only been prudent enough to die then, Glenn," he went on, "I'd have been mourned as a potential judge of the Supreme Court, senator and president." "It'll be three years before I can be admitted, won't it?" asked Marley. "Yes," said Powell; "but that isn't long; and it isn't anything to be admitted."