She told him what little she knew, rather vaguely: Mrs. Maitland had drawn a check--no: she believed it was called a bank certificate of deposit. It was for a great deal of money. When she told him how much, Robert Ferguson struck his fist on the arm of his chair. "That's it!" he said. "That is where David's money went!" "_David's_ money?" Elizabeth said, breathlessly. "I see it now," he went on, angrily; "she had the money on hand; that's why she tried to write that letter. How Fate does get ahead of David every time!" "Uncle! What do you mean?" He told her, briefly, of Mrs. Maitland's plan. "She said two years ago that she was going to give David a lump sum. I didn't know she had got it salted down--she was pretty close-mouthed about some things; but I guess she had. Well, probably, at the last minute, she thought she had been hard on Blair, and decided to hand it over to him, instead of giving it to David. She had a right to, a perfect right to. But I don't understand it! The very day she spoke of writing to David, she told me she wouldn't leave Blair a cent. It isn't like her to whirl about that way--unless it was during one of those times when she wasn't herself. Well," he ended, sighing, "there is nothing to be done about it, of course; but I'll see Nannie, and get at the bottom of it, just for my own satisfaction." Elizabeth's color came and went; she reminded herself that she must be fair to Blair; his mother had a right to show her forgiveness by leaving the money to him instead of David. Yes; she must remember that; she must be just to him. But even as she said so she ground her teeth together. "Blair did not try to influence his mother, Uncle Robert," she said, "if that's what you are thinking of. He didn't see her while she was sick. He has never seen her since--since--" "There are other ways of influencing people than by seeing them. He wrote to Nannie, didn't he?" "If I thought," Elizabeth said in a low voice, "that Blair had induced Nannie to influence Mrs. Maitland, I would--" But she did not finish her sentence. "Good-by, Uncle Robert. I'm going to see Nannie." As she hurried down toward Shantytown through the Sunday emptiness of the hot streets, she said to herself that if Nannie had made her stepmother give the money to Blair, she, Elizabeth, would do something about it! "I won't have it!" she said, passionately. It had been a long time since Elizabeth's face had been so vivid. The old sheet-lightning of anger began to flash faintly across it. She did not know what she would do to Nannie if Nannie had induced Mrs. Maitland to rob David, but she would do something! Yet when she reached the house, her purpose waited for a minute; Nannie's tremor of loneliness and perplexity was so pitifully in evidence that she could not burst into her own perplexity.