tion. He
had given her both, but now before her stood her husband and son
estranged from her.

She moved away at last. With new awakening power of perception, she felt
she was stripped of everything of worth. When she was half-way down the
wide hall she heard a step behind her. She paused, waited, and in a
moment Graham was beside her.

He put his hand in hers. "Mother," he said, quietly.

Her eyes filled with the near tears. She clung to his hand as though he
would protect her against her own bitter thoughts.

"Does your head ache?" he asked. There was solicitude in his voice, but
still that strange, dreadful aloofness, more dreadful because he was not
conscious of it.

"No," she answered. She looked down at him and out of an impulse she
cried: "Do you still love me, Graham?"

"I love you, mother," he answered gravely. But she knew then that there
would be work on her part before once again she stood to him his ideal.

She had dwelt in the core of his heart; perhaps in time she could once
more move near to that sanctified place. The intimate human relation,
husband and wife, parent and child--she knew with pain and yearning that
all else--position, great wealth, worldly power--were vain beside the
joy of those relations in their purest.

* * * * *

Perhaps a week later Suzanna was washing the supper dishes, and Maizie
wiping them. Their mother was upstairs with Peter and the baby, Mr.
Procter in the attic. As Maizie finished the last dish, the door bell
rang.

Suzanna ran to the foot of the stairs.

"Oh, mother, shall I answer?" she cried.

"I wish you would," Mrs. Procter called down. "Peter has a stone bruise
and I'm using liniment."

So Suzanna went to the front door. She opened it to Mr. Bartlett.

"Good evening, Suzanna," he said in a friendly voice. "Is your father at
home?"

"He's upstairs in the attic. Shall I take you to him?" asked Suzanna
very politely.

"Perhaps you'd better consult him first as to that, Suzanna. He may not
wish to be disturbed."

"Well, I will. Won't you sit down in the parlor?"

Mr. Bartlett, half smiling, followed the small figure into the room
designated. He looked about interestedly after Suzanna had gone. A
kerosene lamp set upon a center table sent an apologetic light over the
shabby furniture. Above the mantel with its velvet cover and statuette
of a crying baby, was a picture of Suzanna, a "crayon," Mr. Bartlett
amusingly surm