“I’m sorry to trouble you on Christmas Day with my affairs, but I have had a letter from Mr. Pickering, saying that he will be obliged to bring suit for settlement of my account with Mr. Glenarm’s estate. I needn’t say that this troubles me greatly. In my position a lawsuit is uncomfortable; it would do a real harm to the school. Mr. Pickering implies in a very disagreeable way that I exercised an undue influence over Mr. Glenarm. You can readily understand that that is not a pleasant accusation.”

“He is going pretty far,” I said.

“He gives me credit for a degree of power over others that I regret to say I do not possess. He thinks, for instance, that I am responsible for Miss Devereux’s attitude toward him,—something that I have had nothing whatever to do with.”

“No, of course not.”

“I’m glad you have no harsh feeling toward her. It was unfortunate that Mr. Glenarm saw fit to mention her in his will. It has given her a great deal of notoriety, and has doubtless strengthened the impression in some minds that she and I really plotted to get as much as possible of your grandfather’s estate.”

“No one would regret all this more than my grand-father,—I am sure of that. There are many inexplicable things about his affairs. It seems hardly possible that a man so shrewd as he, and so thoughtful of the feelings of others, should have left so many loose ends behind him. But I assure you I am giving my whole attention to these matters, and I am wholly at your service in anything I can do to help you.”

“I sincerely hope that nothing may interfere to prevent your meeting Mr. Glenarm’s wish that you remain through the year. That was a curious and whimsical provision, but it is not, I imagine, so difficult.”

She spoke in a kindly tone of encouragement that made me feel uneasy and almost ashamed for having already forfeited my claim under the will. Her beautiful gray eyes disconcerted me; I had not the heart to deceive her.

“I have already made it impossible for me to inherit under the will,” I said.

The disappointment in her face rebuked me sharply.

“I am sorry, very sorry, indeed,” she said coldly. “But how, may I ask?”

“I ran away, last night. I went to Cincinnati to see Miss Devereux.”

She rose, staring in dumb astonishment, and after a full minute in which I tried vainly to think of something to say, I left the house.

There is nothing in the world so tiresome as explanations, and I have never in my life tried to make them without floundering into seas of trouble.

CHAPTER XXI

PICKERING SERVES NOTICE

The next morning Bates placed a letter postmarked Cincinnati at my plate. I opened and read it aloud to Larry: