st a matting on the floor with a rug to play on, his white
crib, and some gay little curtains at the windows."

"Have you made the partition double-thick, old man?" asked Lockwood. "This
den-nursery combination strikes me as a little dubious."

"It's no use explaining to a fiendish old bachelor," said Anthony, leading
the way out of the place, "that I'd think I was missing a good deal if I
should get so far away that I couldn't hear little Tony laugh--or cry.
Julie, where's the boy? May I bring him down?"

He disappeared upstairs, whence sounds of hilarity were at once heard.
Presently he reappeared on the stairs, bearing aloft upon his shoulder a
rosy cherub of a baby, smiling and waving a chubby fist at the company.
The beauty in his face was an exquisite mixture of that belonging to both
father and mother. Anthony and his son together made a picture worth
seeing.

Once more Wayne Carey smothered a sigh. But Judith hardened her heart.
Since Baby Anthony had come Wayne had been difficult to manage.

* * * * *

Lockwood stayed after the others had gone. Sitting smoking before the fire
with Anthony after Juliet had left them alone he brought the conversation
around to a point which Anthony had expected.

"What do you hear of that man Huntington?" he asked, as indifferently as a
man is ever able to ask a question which means much to him.

"Huntington? Why, the last was that he was improving a little, I believe.
Arizona is a great place for that sort of thing."

"Good deal of a sacrifice for her people to go with her way out there."

"She couldn't leave them behind. Father half-blind--mother a cripple. I
understand that Arizona air is bracing them, too."

"The fellow's own mother was one of the party, wasn't she?"

"I believe so. He's all she has."

"I don't see, with all those people to chaperon her, why she couldn't have
gone along with him without marrying him," observed Lockwood in a gruff
tone.

Anthony smiled. "That would have been a Tantalus draught indeed," he
remarked. "I imagine poor Huntington will need all the concessions he can
get if he keeps on breathing even Arizona air."

"Anthony," said Lockwood, after a silence of some minutes, during which he
had puffed away with his eyes intent on the fire, "do you fancy Rachel
Redding cared enough for that man to immolate herself like that?"

"Looks very much like it."

"I know it looks like it; but if I r