“Dad,” he said, “you’ve looked so ghastly ever since I’ve been home that I’ve come to put you out of your misery. Cheer up! Things are not as bad as they might be. In the first place, you will be rejoiced to know that I’ve got complete control of all of Edith’s finances. And in the second place, if I don’t mistake my guess, for once you will be even more rejoiced to know that what happened really and truly was an accident. I was downstairs. Edith did lose her balance and fall. There was a woman on the veranda with her near enough to see what happened and there were people on the veranda below when she came smashing down. I got to her first because I was coming that way and it wasn’t far. But it was an accident pure and simple.” Moreland Senior leaned back in his chair and breathed to the depth of his lungs. “Well, Junior,” he said. “I don’t know that I ever heard anything in all my life with which I was better pleased. I may, or I may not, have a few things I regret on my own soul, but I’d hate to undertake the strain of carrying a burden like that concerning you. As a man grows older, he doesn’t sleep so well as he did when he had the cast-iron constitution of youth, and there are times when the night gets pretty bad if a man’s conscience is not altogether clean. Of course, I’m not intimating that I’ve got anybody’s blood on my hands, but in the wild, hot-headed days of youth I may have done two or three things and been through a few experiences that I’d hate to see measured out to you. I want you to have a good time and get all you can out of my money—which is really your money—but be slightly careful. See to it that you don’t get into anything that’ll raise the hair on your head about three o’clock in the morning twenty years from now.” Junior laughed. “Sure!” he said. “Don’t worry, Governor, I’ll be careful. I’ve never done anything so terrible and I’m not planning to do anything except go on with the work I’d started before I went away. Has anything come up concerning Mahala?” Mr. Moreland shook his head. “That’s one of the things, Junior,” he said, “that I’m not quite easy about. It was a big sum to disappear and I was after the Spellmans and I didn’t hesitate to give it to them as hard as I could, but to tell you the plain truth, I haven’t an idea where that money went. I don’t know how it got out of the house, or whether it was out of the house. Are you sure you put that pocket book on the table when Edith told you to?” “I certainly am,” said Junior. “I went into the room, laid it beside her coat, and stepped back. You’ll remember that Mahala testified that it was there when she finished Edith’s hat and laid it with the things she was going to wear.” Mr. Moreland slowly nodded his head.