Whereas in the beginning MacRae had confidently expected by one resource
and another to meet easily the obligation he had incurred, the end of it
was the loss, during the second year of the war, of all the MacRae
lands on Squitty,--all but a rocky corner of a few acres which included
the house and garden. Old Donald had segregated that from his holdings
when he pledged the land, as a matter of sentiment, not of value. All
the rest--acres of pasture, cleared and grassed, stretches of fertile
ground, blocks of noble timber still uncut--had passed through the hands
of mortgage holders, through bank transfers, by devious and tortuous
ways, until the title rested in Horace Gower,--who had promptly built
the showy summer house on Cradle Bay to flaunt in his face, so old
Donald believed and told his son.

It was a curious document, and it made a profound impression on Jack
MacRae. He passed over the underlying motive, a man justifying himself
to his son for a failure which needed no justifying. He saw now why his
father tabooed all things Gower, why indeed he must have hated Gower as
a man who does things in the open hates an enemy who strikes only from
cover.

Strangely enough, Jack managed to grasp the full measure of what his
father's love for Elizabeth Morton must have been without resenting the
secondary part his mother must have played. For old Donald was frank in
his story. He made it clear that he had loved Bessie Morton with an
all-consuming passion, and that when this burned itself out he had never
experienced so headlong an affection again. He spoke with kindly regard
for his wife, but she played little or no part in his account. And Jack
had only a faint memory of his mother, for she had died when he was
seven. His father filled his eyes. His father's enemies were his. Family