"Why, you paid it all back; she ain't lost nothin'. Besides, I heard with my own ears folks sayin' she'd always loved you and it was a pity Jim ever took you away from her. She might 'a done well by you, they said. You got no wrong due. Lord knows you've paid it conscientiously enough," Darley Champers insisted. "Mr. Champers, will you be sure to tell me all you know as soon as possible? Meantime, I'll try to find out something to tell you." "I sure will. Goodday to you." When Champers rose to leave, Leigh put out her hand to him, and the winning smile that made all Grass River folk love her as they loved her uncle Jim now touched the best spot in the heart of the man before her. "God knows it's a lot better to do for folks than to do 'em, and in the end I believe you prosper more at it. My business, except the infernal boom days, never was so good as it's been since I had that time with Carey, and it's all clean business, too, not a smirch on it. Wish I could forget a few things I've did, though." So Darley Champers thought, as he drove up the old Grass River trail in the glory of the April morning. That morning, Leigh Shirley wrote a long letter to Jane Aydelot of Cloverdale, Ohio. Leigh had written many letters to her before, but never one with a plea like this. Miss Jane had mentally grown up with Leigh and had built many a romance about her, which was only hinted at in the letters she received. In the letter of this morning, Leigh begged for all the information Miss Jane could give concerning her father, and further, she pleaded boldly for the reconciliation of the Aydelot family, a thing she had never written of before. Five days later her letter came back "unclaimed" with a brief statement from the Cloverdale postmaster that Miss Jane Aydelot had passed away on the day the letter was written, much beloved, etc. John Jacobs had no need to be warned by Asher Aydelot of Hans Wyker's doings. He knew all of Wyker's movements through Rosie Gimpke. Jacobs had been kind to Rosie, whose bare, loveless life knew few kindnesses, and she harbored the memory of a good deed as her grandfather harbored his hatred. Moreover, the Wyker joint had played havoc with the Gimpke family. Her father had died from a fall received in a drunken brawl there. Two brothers, too drunk to know better, had driven into Little Wolf in a spring flood and been drowned. A sister had married a drinking man who regularly beat her in his regular sprees. For a heavy-footed, heavy-brained, fat German girl, Rosie Gimpke could get into action with surprising alacrity for the safety of one who had shown her a kindness. And it was Rosie Gimpke, whom John Jacobs called the Wykerton W. C. T. U., who swiftly put the word to him that her grandfather was again defying the law and menacing the public welfare.