The mortgage for the loan was given to Horace Carey, as agreed upon between himself and Miss Jane Aydelot.
“If Leigh knows it’s Aydelot money she might feel like she’s taking what should be Thaine’s. Would the Aydelots feel the same if they knew it?” Miss Jane had asked.
“The thing the Aydelots have never grieved for is this Ohio inheritance,” Carey answered her. “Asher gave it up to live his life in his own way. If you knew what a prince of a fellow he is, although he’s only a Kansas farmer, you would understand how that prairie ranch and the lure of the sunflower have gripped him to the West,”
The day after the completion of the sale Dr. Carey went to the Big Wolf neighborhood. In the dusk of the evening he drove up to Darley Champers’ office in Wykerton. As he was hitching his team Rosie Gimpke rushed out of the side street and lunged across to the hitching post.
“Oh, Doctor Carey, coom queek mit me,” she exclaimed in a whisper. “Coom, I just got here from Mis’ Aydelot’s. 270 They mak’ me coom home to work at the Wyker House, ant a man get hurt bad in there. Coom, do coom,” she urged in a frenzy of eagerness.
“What’s the trouble?” Dr. Carey asked.
“Coom. I show you. I ’fraid the man coom back and finish heem. Don’t make no noise, but coom.” Rosie was clutching hard at Dr. Carey’s arm as she whispered.
“That sounds surprising, but life is full of surprises,” the doctor thought as he took up his medicine case and followed Rosie’s lead.
The way took them to the alley behind the Wyker House, through a rear gate to the back door of the kitchen, from which it was a short step to the little “blind tiger” beyond the dining room. Sounds of boisterous talking and laughter and a general shuffling of dishes told that the evening meal was beginning. For her size and clumsiness Rosie whisked the doctor deftly out of sight and joined the ranks of the waiters in the dining room.
The only light inside the little room came from the upper half of the one window looking toward the alley. As it was already twilight the doctor did not get his bearings until a huge form on the floor near the table made an effort to rise.