“Well, dear, I want to do the right thing by you. It’s worried me a lot, tryin’ to decide the best way. I don’t want to leave any trouble behind me for you to settle. And I don’t want to do anything that’ll make you think hard o’ me. I want to be sure you never come to want: that’s what’s worried me. I want you to be happy and comfortable, little girl.”
“I know you do, papa,” she replied. “But don’t bother about those things now.”
The nurse came in to take his temperature. Nan went to her room for the will and, feigning to be straightening some of the things in his closet, she thrust the paper into the dressing-gown pocket.
An hour later the Kinney’s chauffeur left a note from Grace:—
Come out this afternoon at any hour you can. Telephone me where to meet you downtown and I’ll bring you out in the car. I needn’t explain why, but after Saturday you’ll understand.
The doctor found nothing alarming in Farley’s condition, but ordered him to remain in bed for a few days. He said he must have sleep and prescribed an opiate.
At three o’clock Nan left the house.
CHAPTER XIII
A KINNEY LARK AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
“It’s certainly good to see you again!” Mrs. Kinney exclaimed as Nan met her by arrangement at a confectioner’s. “How much time are you going to give me?”
“Oh, I haven’t any,” laughed Nan. “I’ve run away. Papa isn’t so well to-day and couldn’t take his drive as usual, so I’m truanting—and very naughty. I must be back in the house before five.”