raced himself for the contest he knew was at hand, and replied to
her. "My name is Jean Jacques Barbille. I was of the Manor Cartier, in
St. Saviour's parish, Quebec. The mother of the child Zoe, there, was
born at the Manor Cartier. I was her father. I am the grandfather of
this Zoe." He motioned towards the cradle.

Then, with an impulse he could not check and did not seek to check--why
should he? was not the child his own by every right?--he went to the
cradle and looked down at the tiny face on its white pillow. There
could be no mistake about it; here was the face of his lost Zoe, with
something, too, of Carmen, and also the forehead of the Barbilles. As
though the child knew, it opened its eyes wide-big, brown eyes like
those of Carmen Dolores.

"Ah, the beautiful, beloved thing!" he exclaimed in a low-voice, ere
Norah stepped between and almost pushed him back. An outstretched arm in
front of her prevented him from stooping to kiss the child. "Stand back.
The child must not be waked," she said. "It must sleep another hour.
It has its milk at twelve o'clock. Stand aside. I won't have my child
disturbed."

"Have my child disturbed"--that was what she had said, and Jean Jacques
realized what he had to overbear. Here was the thing which must be
fought out at once.

"The child is not yours, but mine," he declared. "Here is proof--the
letter found on my Zoe when she died--addressed to me. The doctor knew.
There is no mistake."

He held out the letter for her to see. "As you can read here, my
daughter was on her way back to the Manor Cartier, to her old home at
St. Saviour's. She was on her way back when she died. If she had lived
I should have had them both; but one is left, according to the will of
God. And so I will take her--this flower of the prairie--and begin life
again."

The face Norah turned on him had that look which is in the face of
an animal, when its young is being forced from it--fierce, hungering,
furtive, vicious.

"The child is mine," she exclaimed--"mine and no other's. The prairie
gave it to me. It came to me out of the storm. 'Tis mine-mine only. I
was barren and wantin', and my man was slippin' from me, because there
was only two of us in our home. I was older than him, and yonder was a
girl with hair like a sheaf of wheat in the sun, and she kept lookin' at
him, and he kept goin' to her. 'Twas a man she wanted, 'twas a child
he wanted, and there they were wantin', and me atin' my heart o