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What if Donald's son should catch it and die, and Donald be deprived of the sight of his first-born? What if Nan should succumb to an attack of it while her husband was in France? In that event would Donald forgive and forget and come home to The Dreamerie? Somehow, old Hector had his doubts. For a long time now, he had felt a great urge to see Donald's son.
His great fingers opened and closed in a clutching movement. He nodded. When Donald returned to The Dreamerie about eleven o'clock, he was agreeably surprised to find his father in the living-room. "Hello, dad!" he greeted The Laird cheerfully. "Glad to see you. When did you get back?" "Came down on the morning train, Donald." They were shaking hands now.
His hand trembled as he held his marine glasses to his blurred eyes and focussed on The Sawdust Pile, in time to see his son enter the limousine with Nan Brent and her child and even at that distance he could see that the car in which they were departing from the Sawdust Pile was not the one in which Donald had left The Dreamerie.
"Six months, Janey," he called up; "and there'll be no appeal from that decision. Nellie! Elizabeth! Poor Jane will be lonesome in Port Agnew, and I'm not wishful to be too hard on her. You'll keep her company." There was a sound of closing doors, and silence settled over The Dreamerie, that little white home that The Laird of Tyee had built and dedicated to peace and love.
So Dad went to the telephone and verified this report by Daney; then we had a grand show-down and I was definitely given my choice of habitation The Dreamerie or the Sawdust Pile. Father, Mother, Elizabeth and Jane; jointly and severally assured me that they would never receive you, so Nan, dear, it appears that I will have to pay rather a heavy price for the privilege of marrying you "
Donald's mother and sisters were at The Dreamerie the night the father and son arrived. Of late years, they had spent less and less of their time there. The Laird had never protested, for he could not blame them for wearying of a little backwoods sawmill town like Port Agnew.
You realize, of course, that there's room on Tyee Head for another Dreamerie, although I built this one for you and her." "There'll be no other house on Tyee Head, father," Donald answered, "unless you care to build one for mother and the girls. The wife that I'll bring home to Port Agnew will not object to my father in my house."
Fifteen minutes later, the young Laird of Port Agnew reposed in the best room of his own hospital, and Andrew Daney was risking his life motoring at top speed up the cliff road to The Dreamerie with bad news for old Hector. Mrs. McKaye and the girls had retired but The Laird was reading in the living-room when Daney entered unannounced.
And you're all quite certain you will never recede from your attitude of hostility toward Nan under no circumstances, to recognize her as my wife and extend to her the hospitality of The Dreamerie?" He challenged his father with a look and the old man slowly nodded an affirmative. His mother thought Donald was about to yield to their opposition and nodded likewise.
The interior of the car was unoccupied save for Donald's clothing and personal effects which some thoughtful person at The Dreamerie had sent down to him. He hazarded a guess that the cool and practical Elizabeth had realized his needs. Returning to the mill office, Mr. Daney sat at his desk and started to look over the mail.
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