ant she should grow up a lady, like
you."

Kate was shivering uncontrollably. Over the brooding Sabbath stillness
of her fields it seemed to her that a strange miasma was creeping, which
shadowed the light of the sun. She had read of such horrors as this. She
had thought of that strange traffic, the White Slave trade, as of some
hideous, modern depravity that belonged to another and harsher world
than her own. Yet here, almost within sight of the home that sheltered
her children, here in the domain where her will was law, where she had
believed herself cognizant of the doings of every man and woman and
child--the thing had been going on unknown to her; the sacrifice of a
little girl creature, not in the name of love (her tolerant mind found
it difficult to condemn the sinning of stupid, healthy young human
animals) but in the name of filial piety.--"Filial piety!" Always
afterward the smug phrase was hideous to her.

"Well," said Philip, rather hoarsely, "what are we to do with this--this
man?"

"Let the Night Riders have him, and welcome!"

But Mag intervened once more in her father's behalf. "No, no, they'd
kill him, shore! He's so sickly. Don't you let 'em git him, Miss Kate,
don't you! He's always been real kind to me, even when he's drunk. Don't
you let 'em git him!"

"Do you love him, Mag?" asked Kate, wonderingly.

"In co'se I do. He's my Pappy."

The others could not speak for a moment. Her unexpected loyalty to the
father who had been "real kind" to her got them by the throat.

"What do you want me to do with him?" Mrs. Kildare asked at last.

"Jes' make him go away. Tell him he dassent come back no more. I reckon
he thinks you'll take keer of him 'cause you're takin' keer of me. Ef he
knows you ain't a-goin' to, he'll go away."

"Very well," said the other, gently, "he shall go away. And, Mag--" she
reached back to grip the girl's hand strongly with hers--"he shall never
have your baby. She shall grow up as nearly a 'lady' as I can make her.
You have my word for that."

CHAPTER XVI

Kate, at this juncture, was filling her days to the brim with work,
turning to it as to a tried friend, tested in many a crisis. Her recipe
for avoiding thought was extreme physical fatigue; a good recipe, but
one which was telling upon her physically. Philip's were not the only
eyes which noticed the beginning of a change in Mrs. Kildare; a certain
lack of buoyancy, an effect of effort in what she accomplish