That report had been sent to escape an accounting.
As she sat through the night hours the Duchess for the first time felt warmth creep over her for Maggie.

She saw Maggie in the light of a victim.

If Maggie had been brought up as her father had planned, she might now be much the girl her father dreamed her.

But Old Jimmie had entered the scheme of things.

Yes, the audacious, willful, confident Maggie, bent on conquering the world in the way Old Jimmie and later Barney Palmer had taught her, was really just a poor misguided victim who should have had a far different fate.
And now the Duchess came to one of the greatest problems of her life.
What should she do?
Considering the facts that Joe Ellison wished the life of a recluse and desired to avoid all talk of the old days, the chances were that he would never happen upon the real state of affairs.
Only she and Old Jimmie knew the essentials of the situation--and very likely Jimmie did not yet know that the friend who had once trusted him was now a free man.