Rankin finally. "We
ought to share more evenly."

The doctor rose to go. "Generally I forget that we're of different
generations," he said with apparent irrelevance, "but there are times
when I feel it keenly."

"Why now especially?" Rankin wondered. "I've stated a doctrine that is
yours, too."

"No; you wouldn't see, of course. Yes; it's my doctrine--in theory. I
believe it, as people believe in Christianity. I should be equally loath
to see anybody doubt it, or practice it. Ah, I'm a fool! Besides, I was
born in Kentucky. And I'm sixty-seven years old."

He shut the door behind him with emphasis.

He was on his way to Bellevue to see Lydia. Knowing her tender heart, he
had expected to see her drowned in grief over her father's death. Her
dry-eyed quiet made him uneasy. That morning, he found her holding
Ariadne on her knees and telling her in a self-possessed, low tone,
which did not tremble, some stories of "when grandfather was a little
boy."

"I don't want her to grow up without knowing something of my father,"
she explained to the doctor.

Her godfather laid a hand on her arm. "Don't keep the tears back so,
Lydia," he implored.

She gave him as great a shock of surprise as her mother had done.

"If I could cry," she said quietly, "it would be because I feel so
little sorrow. I do not miss my father at all--or hardly at all."

The doctor caught at his chair and stared.

"How should I?" she went on drearily. "I almost never saw him. I never
spoke to him about anything that really mattered. I never let him know
me--or anything I really felt."

"What are you talking about?" cried the doctor. "You always lived at
home."

"I never lived with my father. He was always away in the morning before
I was up. I was away, or busy, in the evening when he was there. On
Sundays he never went to church as Mother and I did--I suppose now
because he had some other religion of his own. But if he had I never
knew what it was--or anything else that was in his mind or heart. It
never occurred to me that I could. He tried to love me--I remember so
many times now--and _that_ makes me cry!--how he tried to love me! He
was so glad to see me when I got home from Europe--but he never knew
anything that happened to me. I told you once before that when I had
pneumonia and nearly died Mother kept it from him because he was on a
big case. It was all like that--always. He never knew."

Dr. Melton broke in, his voice uncertain, h