mother-in-law whatever sums he paid you?"

"Yes; but she wouldn't take the money unless she thought it was her very
own."

"But it isn't her very own. It's yours."

"I want to make it hers. I want to transfer it to her absolutely--so
that no one else, not even I, shall have a claim upon it. There must be
ways of doing that."

"There are ways of doing that, but as far as she's concerned it comes to
the same thing. If she won't touch the income, she will refuse to accept
the principal."

"I've thought of that, too; and it's among the reasons why I've come to
you. I hoped you'd help me--"

"To tell a lie about it."

"I should think it might be done without that. My mother-in-law is a
very simple woman in business affairs. She has been used all her life to
having money paid into her account, when she had only the vaguest idea
as to where it came from. If you should write to her now and say that
some small funds in her name were in your hands, and that you would pay
her the income at stated intervals, nothing would seem more natural to
her. She would probably attribute it to some act of foresight on her
son's part, and never think I had anything to do with it at all."

For three or four minutes he sat in meditation, still glancing at her