Larry came out with the questions he had asked himself so frequently these last days.  “But why did her manner change so when she heard Barney and the others?  Why did she help me escape?”

“That was because, deep down, she really loves you.  That’s the worst part of it:  you both love each other.”  The Duchess slowly nodded her head.  “You both love each other.  If it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t care what you tried to do.  But I tell you again you can’t change her.  She’s too sure of herself.  She’ll always try to make you go her way—­and if you don’t, you’ll never get a smile from her.  And because you love each other, I’m afraid you’ll give in and go her way.  That’s what I’m afraid of.  Won’t you just cut her out of your life, Larry?”

It had been a prodigiously long speech for the Duchess.  And Larry realized that the emotion behind it was a thousand times what showed in the thin voice of the bent, gestureless figure.

“For your sake I’m sorry, grandmother.  But I can’t.”

“Then it’s only fair to tell you, Larry,” she said in a more composed tone which expressed a finality of decision, “that if there’s ever anything I can do to stop this, I’ll do it.  For she’s bad for you—­ what with her stiff spirit—­and the ideas Old Jimmie has put into her—­and the way Old Jimmie has brought her up.  I’ll stop things if I can.”

Larry made no reply.  The Duchess continued looking at him steadily for a long space.  He knew she was thinking; and he was wondering what was passing through that shrewd old brain, when she remarked: 

“By the way, Larry, I just remembered what you told me of that old Sing Sing friend—­Joe Ellison.  Have you heard from him recently?”

“He’s out, and he’s working where I am.”

“Yes?  What’s he doing?”

“He’s working there as a gardener.”

Again she was silent a space, her sunken eyes steady With thought.  Then she said: 

“From the time he was twenty till he was thirty I knew Joe Ellison well—­better than I’ve ever told you.  He knew your mother when she was a girl, Larry.  I wish you’d ask him to come in to see me.  As soon as he can manage it.”

Larry promised.  His grandmother said no more about Maggie, and presently Larry bade her good-night and made his cautious way, ever on the lookout for danger, to where he had left his roadster, and thence safely out to Cedar Crest.  But the Duchess sat for hours exactly as he had left her, her accounts unheeded, thinking, thinking, thinking over an utterly impossible possibility that had first presented itself faintly to her several days before.  She did not see how the thing could be; and yet somehow it might be, for many a strange thing did happen in this border world where for so long she had lived.  When finally she went to bed she slept little; her busy conjectures would not permit sleep.  And though the next day she went about her shop seemingly as usual, she was still thinking.