formal visit to the Bingle mansion. They came out from town by motor,
arriving at four in the afternoon. Mr. Bingle was expecting them. They
had telephoned, saying they could stay but a short time and made it
quite clear that it wouldn't be necessary to serve tea. They were
staying in town for a few days before going on to Florida.

At five o'clock they motored swiftly away from Seawood. The ordeal was
over. Kathleen was to go to Mr. and Mrs. Force. The wife of a "man
called Hinman" was to mother the child of Agnes Glenn.

It was to be very simple and easy for the Forces; like their kind,
they left the hard part of the bargain to Mr. Bingle. He was to tell
Kathleen of the great change that was soon to take place in her life.
He was to tell the happy, loving little girl that she was no longer to
call him daddy, that she was to go and live with the man she feared
and disliked. That was the part of the bargain left to the one who
loved her best of all and who would not have given her an instant's
pain for all the world. He was to deliver her, with scant excuse or
explanation, into the hands of strangers--cold, unfeeling strangers.
It would be the same as saying to the child that he did not care for
her any longer, that he did not love her, that he was willing to give
her up to Mr. Force without so much as a pang of regret. For he could
NOT tell her the truth. She was never to know about the carbolic acid
and the days of starvation. She was only to know that Mr. Force was to
be her daddy from this time forward and that Mr. Bingle could never be
anything more to her than Uncle Tom.

But after he told her, he cried.... Still, they were not to take her
away until the end of the week, and that was five days off.