bsurdly inadequate. She
told him in no measured terms exactly what she thought of him, and
indignantly reproached him for the course which he had taken. She quite
pooh-poohed the suggestion that Hugh Davidson might be dead, as the
letter had come back.

"I know he isn't dead," she protested. "I feel it as strongly as if he
were standing before me at this moment. _That child's father is alive_,
Dr. Hunter, and you have got to find him!"

The doctor made a mental reflection as to the "queerness" of women,
with their intuitions and unfounded assertions, without reason or logic
to guide them, but before he and Mrs. Forester parted that day he had
promised to take steps at once. In the end he decided to go to America
and meet face to face the man he had wronged, and ask his forgiveness.
It was the least he could do. One stipulation he made: Marjory must not
know the real object of his journey, in case nothing came of it.

The first step was to find out where Hugh Davidson was likely to be
found, if alive. Dr. Hunter felt as though he were beginning to search
for the proverbial needle in a haystack; but by Mrs. Forester's advice
he entrusted the matter to his lawyers, and in an incredibly short space
of time he heard from them that the man he wanted was now the manager of
the A1 Shipping and Transportation Company at Skaguay, Alaska, the
largest organization of its kind in that part of the world.

So the doctor made up his mind to go in search of his brother-in-law.
His friends the Foresters (he told no one else of his real intentions)
tried to dissuade him, representing to him the length of the journey and
its fatigues, the heat at that time of the year, and any and every
reason they could think of to alter his purpose. But the doctor did
nothing by halves, and having once realized the great wrong he had done,
he would not spare himself anything till he had tried to make
reparation, and it seemed that a personal meeting could do more in that
direction than any number of letters.

"Besides," he said, "it'll do me good. I begin to think that I've kept
myself and Marjory shut up too long. I shall never be anything but an
old fogey, but a little change and knocking about may make me a more
agreeable one."

The scientific meetings at New York served as a plausible excuse for his
going, and the Foresters kept his secret.

Marjory felt as if she were living in a dream, such impossible things
seemed to be happening. Could it