“In the name of heaven, why did you not tell me this the day you married her?” The Laird demanded wrathfully.

“I didn’t know it the day I married her.  She was curious enough to want to see how game I was.  She wanted to be certain I truly loved her, I think—­and in view of her former experience I do not blame her for it.  It pleased you a whole lot, didn’t it, honey?” he added, turning to Nan, “when I married you on faith?”

“But why didn’t you tell us after you had discovered it, Donald?” Mrs. McKaye interrupted.  “That was not kind of you, my son.”

“Well,” he answered soberly, “in the case of you and the girls I didn’t think you deserved it.  I kept hoping you and the girls would confess to Dad that you telephoned Nan to come back to Port Agnew that time I was sick with typhoid—­”

“Eh?  What’s that?” The Laird sat up bristling.

Mrs. McKaye flushed scarlet and seemed on the verge of tears.  Donald went to her and took her in his arms.  “Awfully sorry to have to peach on you, old dear,” he continued.  “Do not think Nan told on you, Mother.  She didn’t.  I figured it all out by myself.  However, as I started to remark, I expected you would confess and that your confession would start a family riot, in the midst of it I knew father would rise up and declare himself.  I give you my word, Dad, that for two weeks before I went to work up at Darrow I watched and waited all day long for you to come down here and tell Nan it was a bet and that we’d play it as it lay.”

Old Hector gritted his teeth and waged his head sorrowfully.  “Nellie,” he warned his trembling wife, “this is what comes of a lack of confidence between man and wife.”

She flared up at that.  “Hush, you hypocrite.  At least I haven’t snooped around here trying to poison dogs and kill people when I was discovered playing Peeping Tom.  A pretty figure you’ve cut throughout this entire affair.  Didn’t I beg you not to be hard on our poor boy?”

“Yes, you had better lay low, Father,” Donald warned him.  “You’ve been married long enough to know that if you start anything with a woman she’ll put it all over you.  We will, therefore, forget Mother’s error and concentrate on you.  Remember the night I dragged you ashore at Darrow’s log boom?  Well, permit me to tell you that you’re a pretty heavy tow and long before my feet struck bottom I figured on two Widows McKaye.  If I’d had to swim twenty feet further I would have lost out.  Really, I thought you’d come through after that.”

“I would if you’d waited a bit,” old Hector protested miserably.  “You ought to know I never do things in a hurry.”

“Well, I do, Dad, but all the same I grew weary waiting for you.  Then I made up my mind I’d never tell you about Nan until you and Mother and the girls had completely reversed yourselves and taken Nan for the woman she is and not the woman you once thought she was.”

“Well, you’ve won, haven’t you?” The Laird’s voice was very husky.