generously by her in the settlement; that would be altogether more pleasant to him.
But Marjorie; she was shut off from her mother almost as much as from him. He gathered that from what Marjorie planned and assumed for the future rather than from anything Marjorie had said. And of course the girl would be shut off, living where Mowbry and she intended, and in the manner fortyfour dollars a week necessitated. What an upturn for his girl! Yet she would be safe enough, safe in a physical and moral sense. Safe, she had come through her experience away from home by herself; she had not been that girl at Cragero's. When he thought of it, the shock of his fear for her seized him for a few seconds; but she had come through safe.
And now she would become what? A wife, a mate for a man, working beside him; and she would become a mother. His little girl, his baby. His eyes were wet as he thought on; he knew a bit of what she was in for; she only guessed; but he could not imagine her quitting. No; that wouldn't be Margy. And he thought, "It worked out something better for her." Something far harder, of course; something far more arduous and trying than he ever had expected his daughter to undergo; but better. Yes, better for her.
More than ever before Charles Hale required himself to find compensation in what he had done; and here he had something of compensation. Not nearly enough for all those consequences which now included Billy's death; yet here was something,—a definite, observable something
He wanted to see his daughter again; but she and Gregg had returned to the garden around the corner of the house and he would not go down there to intrude
