"But she does good in it. What does distance count, against that?" he thought to himself. Aloud he said: "Tell me of Tank, Miss Aydelot." "He has run his course here, but he is shrewd enough to escape the law. His parents mortgaged the Shirley House to get money to keep his doings quiet. My Uncle Francis foreclosed on them at last. But by Jim's abrupt leaving, Cloverdale blamed him for a long time for the family misfortunes. Tank broke every moral law; he invested his money wildly in his greed to make more money, until finally the bank failure came. That is a long story, and it was a dead loss. But the cashier's suicide stopped investigation. All blame was laid on him. And he, being dead, made no complaint and incriminated nobody." "Where is Tank now?" Carey asked. He did not know why the image of Thomas Smith of Wilmington, Delaware, should come unbidden to his mind just now, nor why he should feel that the answer to his question held only a portion of what could have been told him then. "Nobody knows exactly where," Jane Aydelot replied. "He left his wife penniless. She lived here with me and died here. Tank hasn't been seen in Cloverdale for a long time. It is strange how family ties get warped sometimes. And oftenest over property." Doctor Carey thought of Asher, and was silent. But Jane Aydelot divined his thought. "I am thinking of our own family," she said, looking into the heart of the wood fire. "I have my cousin Asher's heritage, which by law now neither he nor any child of his can receive from me." "Miss Aydelot, he doesn't want it. And there is no prejudice in him against you at all. Moreover, if his dreams come true, little Thaine Aydelot will never need it." There was a sternness in Carey's voice that pained his hostess. "But, Doctor Carey!" she began hesitatingly. Then, as if to change the trend of thought, she added simply, "I try to use it well." Horace Carey was by nature and experience a keen reader of human minds. As Jane Aydelot studied the burning coals in the grate, he studied her face, and what he read there gave him both pleasure and pain. Between him and that face came the image of Virginia Aydelot, who should be there instead; of the brown-handed farmer's wife, who had given up so much for the West. And yet, that face, framed in its dark hair, lighted by luminous dark eyes, seemed to blot out the dainty pink and white Jane Aydelot. A strength of will, a view of life at wide angles of vision, a resourcefulness and power of sacrifice seemed to deify the plainly clad prairie home-maker, winning, not inheriting, her possessions. Had Jane been anywhere else save in the home that Virginia might have had, her future might have had another story. But why forecast the might-have-been? "You do use your property well, I am sure," Doctor Carey said, replying to the last words spoken between them, "and yet, you would give it up?" He knew her answer, or he would not have asked the question.