A lost lady
...Ellinger, whom he later learns is Mrs. Forrester's lover, and Constance Ogden, a young girl who will marry Ellinger. Niel starts to spend a lot of time with the Forresters that winter, often playing cards up to three evenings a week. One day a telegram arrives informing Captain Forrester that a small bank of which he is the president has declared bankruptcy. He and Judge Pommeroy leave to take care of the problem. During their absence, Ellinger arrives and Niel accidently spots Mrs. Forrester and Ellinger together in the house, a scene that destroys his image of her. When her husband returns, he announces that he has been financially wiped out. He soon suffers a stroke but survives, and Niel leaves to go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Two years later Niel is returning to the town when he encounters Ivy Peters on the train. Ivy tells him that he has drained the Forrester's marsh and turned it into wheat fields. Once he arrives home, Niel visits the Forresters. The Captain has become a fat old man who sits and watches a sun-dial all day long. Mrs. Forrester is as beautiful as always, but she greets Niel as if he were still a young boy. Niel is put off by the fact that Ivy Peters is on the Forrester estate nearly every day, walking around as if he owns the place. He asks Mrs. Forrester why she allows Ivy to be so rude to her, and she tells him that he is a savvy business man who is investing money for so she can get away from the place. A few weeks later Niel reads that Ellinger has married Constance Ogden and realizes that Mrs. Forrester will be upset. That night she arrives at his door and makes a long distance phone call to Ellinger. Niel is worried that the phone operator will listen in, and when Mrs. Forrester starts to get hysterical, he cuts the phone wire. Soon thereafter the Captain suffers another stroke and Mrs. Forrester is soon unable to care for him by herself. The local women help her, eager for the chance to get into her house and gossip about it. Niel is offended by the way things are going and he chooses to postpone his education for a year in order to take care of the Forresters. The Captain dies within a few months and Mrs. Forrester has the sun-dial place on his grave. Niel ends up staying in the town because his uncle has become sick and needs someone to take care of the law offices. Mrs. Forrester soon switches lawyers from the Judge to Ivy Pet...