"Ah!" The Laird breathed softly, "Twenty-five hundred dollars. Yes, yes! So he did; so he did! And are you leaving Port Agnew indefinitely, Nan?"
"Forever," she replied. "We have robbed you of the ground for a drying-yard for nearly ten years, but this morning the Sawdust Pile is yours."
"Bless my soul!" The Laird ejaculated. "Why, we are not at all in distress for more drying-space."
"Mr. Daney intimated that you were. He asked me how much I would take to abandon my squatter's right, but I declined to charge you a single cent." She smiled up at him a ghost of her sweet, old-time whimsical smile. "It was the first opportunity I had to be magnanimous to the McKaye family, and I hastened to take advantage of it. I merely turned the key in the lock and departed."
"Daney has been a trifle too zealous for the Tyee interests, I fear," he replied gently. "And where do you plan to live?"
"That," she retorted, still smilingly, "is a secret. It may interest you, Mr. McKaye, to know that I am not even leaving a forwarding address for my mail. You see, I never receive any letters of an important nature."
He was silent a moment, digesting this. Then,
"And does my son share a confidence which I am denied?"
"He does not, Mr. McKaye. This is my second opportunity to do the decent thing toward the McKaye family—so I am doing it. I plan to make rather a thorough job of it, too. You—you'll be very kind and patient with him, will you not? He's going to feel rather badly, you know, but, then, I never encouraged him. It's all his fault, I think—I tried to play fair—and it was so hard." Her voice sunk to a mere whisper. "I've always loved Donald, Mr. McKaye. Most people do; so I have not regarded it as sinful on my part."
"You are abandoning him of your own free will—"