Captain Kitt, knew, too. The tears of Loretta, and the comforting by
Daisy, had lost him some sleep.

Now Captain Kitt did not like to lose sleep. Neither did he want Loretta
to marry Billy--nor anybody else. It was Captain Kitt's belief that Daisy
needed the help of her younger sister in the household. But he did not say
this aloud. Instead, he always insisted that Loretta was too young to
think of marriage. So it was Captain Kitt's idea that Loretta should be
packed off on a visit to Mrs. Hemingway. There wouldn't be any Billy
there.

Before Loretta had been at Santa Clara a week, she was convinced that
Captain Kitt's idea was a good one. In the first place, though Billy
wouldn't believe it, she did not want to marry Billy. And in the second
place, though Captain Kitt wouldn't believe it, she did not want to leave
Daisy. By the time Loretta had been at Santa Clara two weeks, she was
absolutely certain that she did not want to marry Billy. But she was not
so sure about not wanting to leave Daisy. Not that she loved Daisy less,
but that she--had doubts.

The day of Loretta's arrival, a nebulous plan began shaping itself in Mrs.
Hemingway's brain. The second day she remarked to Jack Hemingway, her
husband, that Loretta was so innocent a young thing that were it not for
her sweet guilelessness she would be positively stupid. In proof of which,
Mrs. Hemingway told her husband several things that made him chuckle. By
the third day Mrs. Hemingway's plan had taken recognizable form. Then it
was that she composed a letter. On the envelope she wrote: "Mr. Edward
Bashford, Athenian Club, San Francisco."

"Dear Ned," the letter began. She had once been violently loved by him for