And now," she said, with a quick return to her previous nervous hilarity, "knowing this, as you did, and knowing, too, that I would know it when I examined the papers,--don't speak, I'm not through yet,--don't you think that it was just a LITTLE cruel for you to try to hurry me, and make me come here instead of your coming to ME in San Francisco, when I gave you leave for that purpose ?" "But, Mrs.Peyton," gasped Clarence.
"Please don't interrupt me," said the lady, with a touch of her old imperiousness, "for in a moment I must join my guests.

When I found you wouldn't tell me, and left it to me to find out, I could only go away as I did, and really leave you to control what I believed was your own property.

And I thought, too, that I understood your motives, and, to be frank with you, that worried me; for I believed I knew the disposition and feelings of a certain person better than yourself." "One moment," broke out Clarence, "you MUST hear me, now.

Foolish and misguided as that purchase may have been, I swear to you I had only one motive in making it,--to save the homestead for you and your husband, who had been my first and earliest benefactors.

What the result of it was, you, as a business woman, know; your friends know; your lawyer will tell you the same.