It isn't as if the slander had killed
her love for him. It hasn't; it has strengthened it. 'I must bear this
for him and for me,' she said, looking at me with her mother's eyes. She
never looked like her mother before. It's broken me up. What's the world
coming to, when women get the bit in their teeth?"
"There are times when all women look alike," Ledyard spoke half to
himself; "I've noticed that." The rest of Moffatt's sentence he ignored.
"Why, in the name of all that is good," Moffatt blazed away, "did you
send that redheaded girl into our lives? I might have known from the hour
she set her will against mine that she was no good omen. Things I haven't
crushed, Ledyard, have always ended by giving me a blow, sooner or later.
Think of her coming into my home last night and daring----" The words
ended in a gulp. "Let me send Margaret to you," pleaded the father at his
wits' end. "Huntter is away. Will not be back until to-morrow. Perhaps
you can move her. You brought her into the world; you ought to try and
keep her here."
At four Margaret entered Ledyard's office. She was very white, very
self-possessed, but gently smiling.
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