“Let me tell you of Alice first,” she said. “You know, of course, that she loved Jim. They were just suited to each other. But her mother and Tank’s mother planned otherwise. Alice was submissive. Tank was greedy. He wanted the old Leigh farm. And envious, for he seemed to hate Jim always. It grew to be the passion of his life to want to take whatever Jim had. His mother hated Jim before he was born. It was his pre-natal heritage, combined with a selfish nature. There was misrepresentation and deception enough to make a plot for a novel; a misunderstanding and brief estrangement, separating Jim and Alice forever—all managed by Tank and his mother, for the farm first, and the downfall of Jim second. They took no account of Alice, who must be the greatest loser. And after they were married, both mothers-in-law were disappointed, for the Leigh farm was heavily incumbered and sold by the sheriff the same fall, and the Shirley House fell into Uncle Francis Aydelot’s hands in about the same way. Love of property can be the root of much misery.” Miss Jane paused, for the story brought bitterness to her kindly soul.
“It is ended now,” Horace Carey said gently. “It is well that it is, I am sure.” 164
“Yes, Alice rests now beside her two little ones who went before her. She had no sorrow in going, except for Leigh. And”—
“And you lifted that, I know.” Doctor Carey finished the sentence.
“I tried to,” Miss Jane said, struggling between timidity and truthfulness. “I made her last hours peaceful, for she knew Leigh would be cared for and safe. I saw to that. Tank Shirley is bound to a surrender of all legal claim to her. It was left to Jim to take her, if he chose. If not, she belongs to me. She is a strange child, wise beyond her years, with a sort of power already for not telling all she knows. You can rely on her in almost anything. She will make a strong woman some day.”
Doctor Carey read the loving sacrifice back of the words, and his heart warmed toward this sweet-spirited, childless woman.
“Jim wants her, else I could not have come,” he said gently, “but you can come to Grass River to see her sometimes.”
“Oh, no, it is so far,” Jane Aydelot said, and Carey realized in how small an orbit her life revolved.
“But she does good in it. What does distance count, against that?” he thought to himself. Aloud he said:
“Tell me of Tank, Miss Aydelot.”