we, darling?
So you just show this letter to your father, and tell him how
things stand. I've got a good business. The drug-store is worth
$1,200 a year--my half--but knock off fifty per cent and we
could live nicely. Don't you think so? I want to see you so
bad, and talk things over. If you can't come back soon, I will
come on. Write soon.

Yours till death,

WILL.

From the first word Anson winced, grew perplexed, then suffered. His
head drooped forward on his hands, his elbows rested on his vast,
spread knees. He drew his breath with a long, grieving gasp. Bert read
on steadily to the end, then glanced at his companion with a deep frown
darkening his face; but he was not taken by surprise. He had not had
paternal affection change to the passion of a lover only to have it
swept down like a half-opened flower. For the first time in his life
Anson writhed in mental agony. He saw it all. It meant eternal
separation. It meant a long ache in his heart which time could scarcely
deaden into a tolerable pain.

Gearheart rose and went out, unwilling to witness the agony of his
friend and desiring himself to be alone. Anson sat motionless, with his
hands covering his wet eyes, going over the past and trying to figure
the future.

He began in that storm: felt again the little form and face of the
wailing child; thought of the frightful struggle against the wind and
snow; of the touch of the little hands and feet; of her pretty prattle
and gleeful laughter; then of her helpful and oddly-womanish ways as
she grew older; of the fresh, clear voice calling him "pap" and
ordering him about with a roguish air; of her beauty now, when for the
first time he had begun to hope that she might be something dearer to
him.

How could he live without her? She had grown to be a part of him. He
had long ceased to think of the future without her. As he sat so, the
bedroom door opened, and Flaxen's tearful face looked out at him. He
did not seem to hear, and she stole up to him and, putting her arm
around his neck, laid her cheek on his head--a dear, familiar, childish
gesture, used when she wished to propitiate him. He roused himself and
put his arm about her waist, tried to speak, and finally said in a
sorry attempt at humor, wofully belied by the tears on his face and the
choking in his throat:

"You tell that feller--if he wants ye, to jest come an'--git ye--that's
all!"

CHAPTER XII.

FLAXE