e?"

"He's happy enough, yes, sure!"

"Then let's take him in," repeated Jinnie eagerly.

"Let's take 'im in, cobbler," breathed Bobbie, pressing forward. "He
wants to come in."

They lifted the cover of the basket, and there in quietude the
barn-cat was sleeping his long last sleep.

Jinnie lifted one of the stiff little paws, and placed it in Lafe's
fingers. The cobbler shook it tenderly.

"You're in the club, sir," said he in a thick, choked voice. Then
Jinnie and Bobbie, carrying their precious dead comrade, started for
the hill.

CHAPTER XXIV

"HE MIGHT EVEN MARRY HER"

"I don't see why you must have her out of the way entirely," hesitated
Molly Merriweather, looking up into Jordan Morse's face. "Couldn't you
send her to some girls' place?"

"Now you don't know anything about it, Molly," answered the man
impatiently. "If she doesn't disappear absolutely, the cobbler and
Theodore'll find her."

"That's so," said Molly, meditatively, "but it seems horrible----"

Morse interrupted her with a sarcastic laugh.

"That's what Theodore would think, and more, too, if he thought any
one was going to harm a hair of the child's head."

Molly flamed red.

"To save her, he might even marry her," Morse went on relentlessly.

Molly gestured negatively.

"He wouldn't. He couldn't!" she cried stormily. She had never
permitted herself to face such a catastrophe save when she was angry.

Jordan Morse contemplated his wife a short space of time.

"I can't understand your falling in love with a man who hasn't
breathed a word of affection for you," he said tentatively.

Molly showed him an angry face.

"You're not a woman, so you can't judge," she replied.

"Thank God for that!" retorted Morse.

"We wouldn't have had any of this trouble," he continued, at length,
"if you'd let me know about the boy. There's no excuse for you,
absolutely none. You know very well I would have come back."

All the softness in the woman turned to hardness.

"How many times," she flamed, "must I tell you I was too angry to
write or beg you to come, Jordan?... I've told you over and over."

"And with all you say, I can't understand it. Are you going to impart
your precious past to Theodore?"

"No," replied Molly, setting her lips.

Presently Morse laughed provokingly.

"How you women do count your chickens before they're hatched! Where
did you get the idea Theodore was going to ask you to marry him?"

"I'll make