fond of this brave, beautiful patient--he
turned away to find Jason Jones and the nurse Janet confronting one
another in tense attitudes. The man stared wonderingly into the nurse's
face; Janet, her eyes now unveiled, returned the stare with an
expression that Dr. Anstruther could not fathom.

They seemed to feel the doctor's observation, for Janet turned her back
abruptly, while the man swung around and tiptoed hastily from the room.

Dr. Anstruther looked at the nurse reflectively.

"Who was it that screamed? Was it you, or Mrs. Jones?" he asked.

She hesitated a moment.

"It was I," she replied. "I saw her face and knew that--that the end
had come."

It was a lie, and the nurse knew that the shrewd doctor recognized it
as a lie. But he made no comment and with a last regretful look toward
the bed he followed Jason Jones out.

CHAPTER IV
ALORA'S NEW LIFE

Time sears all heart wounds. The scars remain, perhaps, but as the
clock ticks on the ache is stilled and the soreness finally passes
away.

At first Alora was heart-broken over her mother's loss. She lived in a
sort of stupor for weeks after the funeral. Her father's presence she
accepted without comment or emotion, for it had been arranged by "Mamma
Tone." She did not consider, in those first weeks, whether she cared
for her newly found father or not. Her mother's statement that he was a
"good man" and would love Alora dearly was taken by the child as a
matter of fact, while her mother's injunction to love him and confide
in him in her stead was for the present ignored.

Indeed, during those first weeks Lory had no fault to find with her new
protector, for she saw little of him. Jason Jones retained his room at
the hotel and allowed Alora and her governess to inhabit the handsome
suite her mother had occupied, although they were much too small for
the big apartments. However, Lory would have felt uncomfortable, just
then, in any other place. Her mother's chamber was closed and the
curtains drawn, but every night before she retired to her own little
room the child would steal in, in the dark, and feel her way to the
empty bed and kiss the pillow on which her dear mother's head had
rested. Miss Gorham, the governess, was aware of these evening
excursions, but offered no objection. Indeed, the woman objected to
nothing that did not interfere with her own personal comfort and
convenience. Under the eyes of Mrs. Jones she had been prim and
dutiful, but