"Yes; when she learned that, she came home."
"But why didn't she prosecute him, Caleb? She owed that to herself and the child—- to her good name and"
"She had her reasons, lad."
"But you should have prosecuted the scoundrel, Caleb."
"I had no money for lawyers. I knew I was going to need it all for Nan and her child. And I thought her reasons sufficient, Donald. She said it would all come out right in the end. Maybe it will."
"Do you mean she knowingly accepted the inevitable disgrace when she might have—have—" He wanted to add, "proved herself virtuous," but, somehow, the words would not come. They didn't appear to him to be quite fair to Nan.
The old man nodded.
"Of course we haven't told this to anybody else," he hastened to add. "'Twould have been useless. They'd have thought it a lie."
"Yes, Caleb—a particularly clumsy and stupid lie."
Caleb Brent looked up suddenly and searched, with an alert and wistful glance, the face of the young laird of Tyee.