s softly opened; and the boy's mother stepped in, moving on
tiptoe, and swiftly turned to bar entrance with her arm.

"Hist!" she whispered, angrily. "Don't speak so loud. You'll wake the
boy."

"Let me in, Millie," the man insisted. "Aw, come on, now!"

"I can't, Jim. You know I can't. Go on home now. Stop that! I won't
marry you. Let go my arm. You'll wake the boy, I tell you!"

There was a short scuffle: at the end of which, the woman's arm still
barred the door.

"Here I ain't seen you in three year," the man complained. "And you
won't let me in. That ain't right, Millie. It ain't kind to an old
friend like me. You didn't used to be that way."

"No," the woman whispered, abstractedly; "there's been a change. I
ain't the same as I used to be."

"You ain't changed for the better, Millie. No, you ain't."

"I don't know," she mused. "Sometimes I think not. It ain't because I
don't want you, Jim," she continued, speaking more softly, now, "that I
don't let you in. God knows, I like to meet old friends; but----"

It was sufficient. The man gently took her arm from the way. He
stepped in--glanced at the sleeping boy, lying still as death, shaded
from the lamp--and turned again to the woman.

"Don't wake him!" she said.

They were still standing. The man was short, long-armed, vastly broad
at the shoulders, deep-chested: flashy in dress, dull and kind of
feature--handsome enough, withal. He was an acrobat. Even in the dim
light, he carried the impression of great muscular strength--of grace
and agility. For a moment the woman's eyes ran over his stocky body:
then, spasmodically clenching her hands, she turned quickly to the boy
on the bed; and she moved back from the man, and thereafter regarded
him watchfully.

"Don't make no difference if I do wake him," he complained. "The boy
knows me."

"But he don't like you."

"Aw, Millie!" said he, in reproach. "Come off!"

"I seen it in his eyes," she insisted.

The man softly laughed.

"Don't you laugh no more!" she flashed. "You can't tell a mother what
she sees in her own baby's eyes. I tell you, Jim, he don't like you.
He never did."

"That's all fancy, Millie. Why, he ain't seen me in three year! And
you can't see nothing in the eyes of a four year old kid. You're too
fond of that boy, anyhow," the man continued, indignantly. "What's got
into you? You ain't forgot that winter night out there in Idaho, have
you? Don't yo