"The law?" he said, looking at her with cold eyes. "I suppose you mean statute law? No, my dear, it doesn't."
"Then I can't understand it," she declared laughing.
"It's nothing very abstruse. I can't have stockholders who trusted our old firm cheated by a couple of cousins of mine. I've assumed the liabilities—that's all."
"But you don't have to, by law?" she persisted, still bewildered.
"My dear Nelly, I don't do things because of the law," he said dryly. "But never mind; it is going to give me something to do. Tell me about yourself. How are you?"
"I'm—pretty lonely, Lloyd," she said.
And he answered, sympathetically, that he had been afraid of that. "You are too much by yourself. Of course, it's lonely for you. I am very much pleased with this idea of the little boy."
She shook her head. "I can't take him."
"Why not?" he protested, and broke off. "Nelly, look! You are going to have company."
He had caught sight of some one fumbling with the latch of the green gate in the hedge. Helena opened her lips in consternation.