ruth."

"I cannot," Mr. Grooten answered simply.

There was a certain crisp definiteness about those two words which
carried conviction with them. Mabane and I were a little staggered. Our
position was such a strong one, our request so reasonable, that I think
that we had never realized the possibility of a refusal.

"May I ask you this?" Mabane said. "Do you expect that we shall continue
our--I suppose we may call it guardianship--of Isobel in the face of
your present attitude?"

"I hope so, for the present," our visitor admitted softly.

"Notwithstanding," Mabane continued, "our absolute ignorance of
everything connected with her, our lack of any sort of claim or title to
the charge of her, and the increasing number of people who still persist
in trying to take her from us?"

Mr. Grooten shrugged his shoulders.

"You omit to mention the factors in the situation which may be said to
be on your side," he murmured.

"I should be interested to know what those are," I remarked.

"Certainly. The first and most powerful of all is, of course,
possession."

Mabane nodded.

"And after that?"

"The fact that not one of the three people who have appealed to you for
the charge of the child is in a position to use the only real force
which exists in this land. I mean the law," Grooten continued.

This kept us silent again for a moment. Mabane, I could see, was getting
a little ruffled.

"You pelt us with enigmas, sir," he said. "You answer our questions only
by propounding fresh conundrums. One thing, at least, you may feel
disposed to tell us. What is your own relationship to Isobel?"

"None," Mr. Grooten answered.

"Your interest, then?"

Mr. Grooten remained silent. He sat in his chair, very still and very
quiet. Yet in his eyes there shone for a moment something which seemed
to bring into the little room the shadow of great things. Mabane and I
both felt it. We had the sense of having been left behind. The little
man in his chair seemed to have been lifted out of our reach into the
mightier world of passion and suffering and self-conquest.

"I loved her mother," he said softly. "I was the man whom her mother
loved."

There was a silence between us then. We had no more to say. We were at
that moment his bounden slaves. But by some evil chance, after a
lengthened pause, he continued--

"I, alas, could do little for the child. Yet when I heard that harm was
threatened to her through that scamp Delahaye,