"I
am going to have you, and that is all that interests me."
Without a word the girl turned and left the room.
Jane was not married before she left with her father and
Esmeralda for her little Wisconsin farm, and as she coldly
bid Robert Canler goodby as her train pulled out, he called to
her that he would join them in a week or two.
At their destination they were met by Clayton and Mr.
Philander in a huge touring car belonging to the former, and
quickly whirled away through the dense northern woods toward
the little farm which the girl had not visited before
since childhood.
The farmhouse, which stood on a little elevation some
hundred yards from the tenant house, had undergone a complete
transformation during the three weeks that Clayton and
Mr. Philander had been there.
The former had imported a small army of carpenters and
plasterers, plumbers and painters from a distant city, and
what had been but a dilapidated shell when they reached it
was now a cosy little two-story house filled with every modern
convenience procurable in so short a time.
"Why, Mr. Clayton, what have you done?" cried Jane Porter,
her heart sinking within her as she realized the probable
size of the expenditure that had been made.
"S-sh," cautioned Clayton. "Don't let your father guess. If
you don't tell him he will never notice, and I simply couldn't
think of him living in the terrible squalor and sordidness
which Mr.
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