rning abruptly away.

McLean caught his arm roughly.

"You look here!" he cried in desperation. "You say that as if I could do
something if I would. I tell you the boy is dear to me past expression.
I would do anything--spend any sum. You have noticed and repeatedly
commented on the young girl with me. It is that child that he wants! He
worships her to adoration, and knowing he can never be anything to her,
he prefers death to life. In God's name, what can I do about it?"

"Barring that missing hand, I never examined a finer man," said the
surgeon, "and she seemed perfectly devoted to him; why cannot he have
her?"

"Why?" echoed McLean. "Why? Well, for many reasons! I told you he was my
son. You probably knew that he was not. A little over a year ago I never
had seen him. He joined one of my lumber gangs from the road. He is a
stray, left at one of your homes for the friendless here in Chicago.
When he grew up the superintendent bound him to a brutal man. He ran
away and landed in one of my lumber camps. He has no name or knowledge
of legal birth. The Angel--we have talked of her. You see what she is,
physically and mentally. She has ancestors reaching back to Plymouth
Rock, and across the sea for generations before that. She is an
idolized, petted only child, and there is great wealth. Life holds
everything for her, nothing for him. He sees it more plainly than anyone
else could. There is nothing for the boy but death, if it is the Angel
that is required to save him."

The Angel stood between them.

"Well, I just guess not!" she cried. "If Freckles wants me, all he has
to do is to say so, and he can have me!"

The amazed men stepped back, staring at her.

"That he will never say," said McLean at last, "and you don't
understand, Angel. I don't know how you came here. I wouldn't have had
you hear that for the world, but since you have, dear girl, you must be
told that it isn't your friendship or your kindness Freckles wants; it
is your love."

The Angel looked straight into the great surgeon's eyes with her clear,
steady orbs of blue, and then into McLean's with unwavering frankness.

"Well, I do love him," she said simply.

McLean's arms dropped helplessly.

"You don't understand," he reiterated patiently. "It isn't the love of
a friend, or a comrade, or a sister, that Freckles wants from you; it
is the love of a sweetheart. And if to save the life he has offered
for you, you are thinking of being generou