--" he said, smiling at
Maurice, "Mr.--? I didn't get your name. You look all in!"

Maurice shook his head: "I'm all right. Mrs. Dale will you step in here?
I want to speak to you a minute." As Lily preceded him into the dining
room, he said, quickly, to the doctor, "I want to tell her not to worry
about money, you know." To Lily--when he closed the door--he was briefly
ruthless: "I'll pay for everything. But I just want to say, if he
dies--"

She screamed out, "_No--no!_"

"He won't," he said, angrily; "but if he does, you are to say his
father's dead. Do you understand? Say his name was--what did you call
it?--William?"

"I don't know. My God! what difference does it make? Call it anything!
John."

"Well, say his father was John Dale of New York, and he's dead. Promise
me!"

She promised--"Honest to God!" her face was furrowed with fright. As
they went back to the doctor Maurice had a glimpse of Lily's bedroom,
where Jacky, rolled in a blanket, was vociferating that he would _not_
be carried downstairs by the orderly.

"Oh, Sweety," Lily entreated; "see, nice pretty gentleman! Let him carry
you?"

"Won't," said Jacky.

At which Maurice said, decidedly: "Behave yourself, Jacobus! I'll carry
you."

Instantly Jacky stopped crying: "You throwed away the present I give
you," he said; "but," he conceded, "you may carry me."

The doctor objected. "It isn't safe--"

"Oh, let's get it over," Maurice said, sharply; "I shan't see any
children. It's safe enough! Anything to stop this scene!"

The bothered doctor half consented, and Maurice lifted Jacky, very
gently; as he did so, the little fellow somehow squirmed a hand out of
the infolding blanket, and made a hot clutch for his father's ear; he
gripped it so firmly that, in spite of Maurice's wincing expostulation,
he pulled the big blond head over sidewise until it rested on his own
little head. That burning grip held Maurice prisoner all the way
downstairs; it chained him to the child until they reached the street.
There the clutch relaxed, but for one poignant moment, as Maurice lifted
Jacky into the ambulance, father and son looked into each other's eyes,
and Maurice said--the words suddenly tumbling from his lips:

"Now, my little Jacky, you'll be good, won't you?" Then the ambulance
rolled softly away, and he stood on the curbstone and felt his heart
swelling in his throat: "Why did I say '_my_'?" As he walked home he
tried to explain the possessing wo