It was from her grandfather that this revelation came. The holidays had passed. January with its cold and snow was gone; February followed, in turn giving way to a mild, spring-like March; and daily gaining strength, Beeston was up and out of doors. Overwork was the man's chief trouble; his vitality literally had burned him out. What he needed was rest, much rest. Every afternoon, tucked up in the corner of a big motor landau with the top let down, he drove in the park and on Riverside Drive, Bab and David with him. Bab before long learned to look forward with pleasure to these excursions.

By now she had lost the feeling of uneasiness that Beeston once had roused in her; and in its place had risen a deep affection for the dark, lonely, grim old man. Of his son he no longer asked now, silenced when once he realized she could tell him nothing; nor did he ever probe her about her own experiences. The past, it seemed, he had accepted as a closed book. It was as if he had resolved to rouse no sleeping dogs, but meant to take out of what was left him of life whatever happiness it held. Bab, for all his prickly ways, could not have had a kindlier, more devoted relative. Certainly he let her want for nothing. All that money meant was hers. Beeston every day made sure of that.

"Happy?" he'd rumble at her.

"Happy!" she'd return.

To see her few indeed would have thought any shadow hovered in her heart—not David, not Beeston, at any rate. Perched up between them in the motor, she laughed and chatted, her face radiant, the slim figure in its furs, its jaunty little toque, a charming, animated picture. Indeed, with David's gentleness, with her grandfather's gruff, amused indulgence, there were times when she could almost forget that shadow; when, in fact, she was forgetfully happy, almost as happy as she averred.

It was on a day, a ride just such as this, then, that Bab first got that hint about Varick. That day David had not gone with them. The Lloyds having closed their town house, transferring themselves to their country place out on Long Island, David was spending the day there. Alone with Bab, Beeston all at once grew communicative.

A smile, lurking and sardonic, had crept into his face. Curiously, though, as Bab was to learn, it was at himself that Beeston smiled. The man, it appeared, had been trying to do a kindly turn; and this, the cause of his cynical amusement, seemed to have been no less than an effort to reward Mrs. Tilney and Mr. Mapleson for what they'd done for Bab. To his amazement, however, the two had declined, Mrs. Tilney refusing stiffly, not to say indignantly, the offer made by Beeston's lawyers, Mr. Mapleson, for his part, growing suddenly agitated.

Bab pricked up her ears. Mr. Mapleson's queerness long had been an old story with her. Of late, though, in her visits to Mrs. Tilney's, she had noted he had grown still more queer. Why was it? What had happened that made them all so queer? Why the last time she had gone there she had happened suddenly on Mr. Mapleson, and the little man was in tears! And then, too, that was but a part of it.

"Yes, ran up the stairs!" Beeston was saying, still speaking of Mr. Mapleson. "The lawyers tell me the man looked downright terrified!"

Bab spoke then. "Dad"—it was thus she called him—"dad," she demanded, "what's wrong? Why Is it that Mr. Varick never comes to our house? He used to, you know!"

Varick! At the name she saw a quick gleam spring in Beeston's eyes, and then, his brows thickening, he scowled. But Bab now had forgotten caution in her determination to know. Assuredly there must be some good reason why Varick had avoided her.

"Huh!" said Beeston abruptly. "What difference is it to you what that fellow does?"

"Only that I like him, dad! That's enough, isn't it?" Bab answered deliberately; and Beeston, from under his shaggy brows, gave her another sharp stare.

"Oh, so you like him, eh?" he returned, his eyes lowering. "That's how the land lies, is it? And why do you like him, let me ask?"

"Why shouldn't I?" Bab retorted quietly. Then without calculating the consequences of what she said, she added: "So would you have liked him if he had been as kind, as pleasant as he always was to me!"

The statement seemed to hit Beeston as significant Again his eyes lit darkly and he gazed at her, his face sneering.

"Huh, I see!" he drawled. "Made love to you, I suppose, down in that boarding house! Eh? So that's it, is it?" At his brusqueness, the blunt, brutal frankness of his scorn, Bab felt all the blood in her body rush hotly into her face. Before she could answer him, however, Beeston spoke again.

"Yes," he rumbled, "it'd be like a Varick to want to do me dirt!" His voice came thickly, contempt and hatred bubbling together in his tone. "You don't know, I suppose, why that fellow's living in that house? Eh? Well, I'll tell you why. His father set out to trim me and I turned the tables on him. That's why. Lord!" growled Beeston. "And now, I take it, the son wants to get back at me! Trying to get you and your money, isn't he?"

But this, it happened, was too much.

"That's not true!" said Bab. "You shan't say that!"

She would have said more but Beeston, with a scornful laugh, cut her short.

"You don't think, do you, he'd marry you without your money? If you do," he sneered, "then why didn't he do it when he had the chance? He was there in that house with you, wasn't he?"

Each word, as he drawled it slowly at her, seemed barbed with a venom calculated to destroy. Her face white, Bab heard him in wonder. Curiously she had no answer. When she tried she could not find the words. Beeston, leaning forward, tapped the chauffeur on the shoulder.

"Drive home!" he ordered.

Was it true? Was it, indeed, that Varick never would marry her except that she had money? She knew it was! How could she disguise it? She herself had said as much in the days when she had been only Bab, Mrs. Tilney's unknown ward. The words, the phrases of that very thought kept recurring to her now. A Varick single and living in a boarding house was far different from a Varick married, living in a four-room Harlem flat!

That was it, then. If he married her it would be only for her money? Bab couldn't believe it! He was not that sort. She didn't care who said it, Varick was not a vulgar fortune hunter. Yes, but if he wasn't, then why hadn't he married her when she was only Bab—Bab of the boarding house? Why? Why? Why?

Her face like stone, Bab sat out the remainder of that drive plunged in those gnawing reflections. Beeston, too, seemed stricken into silence. His brows drawn together, his murky eyes peering from beneath their heavy lids, he was slouched down in his seat, staring straight ahead of him. What visions stalked before him, wraiths of his dead, stormy past, Bab had no guess; but that hatred stirred thickly in his heart one had but to see his face to know. Bab, though, gave little heed to that. Deep in her own heart, too, poison bubbled.

It was true! He never, never would marry her but that she had money! And if marry her he did, never would she know whether it was for herself or for her money. She was still thinking of it, mulling it all over and over in her mind, when the motor rolled up to the Beeston door. Beeston, leaning heavily on the footman's arm, alighted. Bab, still plunged in reflection, sat where she was.

"You coming in?" her grandfather demanded.

Bab shook her head. She had something to do, she said; and saying no more Beeston turned away. She watched him hobble up the stairs and, still on the footman's arm, disappear indoors. Then when he was gone, when the door was shut and the servant had returned to the car, Bab, as the man touched his hat to her, sat up, suddenly alert. She knew what she must do.

"Drive to Mrs. Tilney's," she said.