oom in Adare House. The baby's fever grew
steadily worse, until in Josephine's eyes Philip read the terrible
fear. He remained mostly with Adare in the big room. The lamps were
lighted, and Adare had just risen from his chair, when Miriam came
through the door. She was swaying, her hands reaching out gropingly,
her face the gray of ash that crumbles from an ember. Adare sprung to
meet her, a strange cry on his lips, and Philip was a step behind her.
He heard her moaning words, and as he rushed past them into the hall he
knew that she had fallen fainting into her husband's arms.

In the doorway to Josephine's room he paused. She was there, kneeling
beside the little cradle, and her face as she lifted it to him was
tearless, but filled with a grief that went to the quick of his soul.
He did not need to look into the cradle as she rose unsteadily,
clutching a hand at her heart, as if to keep it from breaking. He knew
what he would see. And now he went to her and drew her close in his
strong arms, whispering the pent-up passion of the things that were in
his heart, until at last her arms stole up about his neck, and she
sobbed on his breast like a child. How long he held her there,
whispering over and over again the words that made her grief his own,
he could not have told; but after a time he knew that some one else had
entered the room, and he raised his eyes to meet those of John Adare.
The face of the great, grizzled giant had aged five years. But his head
was erect. He looked at Philip squarely. He put out his two hands, and
one rested on Josephine's head, the other on Philip's shoulder.

"My children," he said gently, and in those two words were weighted the
strength and consolation of the world.

He pointed to the door, motioning Philip to take Josephine away, and
then he went and stood at the crib-side, his great shoulders hunched
over, his head bowed down.

Tenderly Philip led Josephine from the room. Adare had taken his wife
to her room, and when they entered she was sitting in a chair, staring
and speechless. And now Josephine turned to Philip, taking his face
between her two hands, and her soul looking at him through a blinding
mist of tears.

"My Philip," she whispered, and drew his face down and kissed him. "Go
to him now. We will come--soon."

He returned to Adare like one in a dream--a dream that was grief and
pain, with its one golden thread of joy. Jean was there now, and the
Indian woman; and the m