"I remember once," said he, in a dreary monotone, "when he was four years old. He saw a woolly lamb in a shop window and wanted it. I'd lost ninety dollars that day at the races and I was sore. He begged me to buy him the lamb. It cost only a quarter. I wouldn't. I told him he ought to be content to sponge on me for food and clothes without wanting presents, too. I remember he cried when I pulled him away from the shop window. And I hit him. I wish—I wish I'd——"
"If there's anything worse than a hardened criminal," snorted McPherson, "it's a silly, sentimental one. You say you want to go in and see him? Go ahead then. You don't have to ask my leave. It's your own house, isn't it?"
"No," answered Frederik, "it isn't."
"Huh? Oh, I remember now. You said last night you were going to give it to Kathrien. Don't worry. A promise like that isn't binding in law. And you'll repent of it almost as soon as you'll stop repenting for Willem."
"Perhaps so," agreed Frederik. "But it will be too late then. Here," he went on, pulling a long envelope from his pocket, "take charge of this, will you, and give it to Kathrien for her signature in case I don't see her?"
"What is it?" asked McPherson, mechanically taking the envelope as Frederik thrust it into his hand.
"Before I went to the hotel for a room last night," answered the other, "I called on Colonel Lawton and got him to draw it up. All it lacks is her signature."
"What——?"
"It is a deed for the house and the twelve-acre 'home plot' it stands on. That includes the two cottages over on McIntyre Street. They're both rented and in good condition. They'll bring her in nearly eight hundred a year. It's less than my uncle would have left her if he'd known——"
"He knew," interrupted McPherson decisively. "And that's why you did it. As you said last night, 'somebody has been doing your thinking for you.'"