over again. Grant played with the child, showed the little
fellow his toys and tried to stop the incessant call of
"Mother--mother--where's mother!" At last the boy's eyes filled. He
picked up the child, knocking his own new hat roughly to the floor. He
drew up his chin, straightened his trembling jaw, batted his eyes so
that the moisture left them and said to his father in a hard, low
voice--a man's voice:

"I am going to Margaret; she must help."

It was dark when he came to town and walked up Congress Street with the
little one snuggled in his arms. Just before he arrived at the house,
the restless child had asked to walk, and they went hand in hand up the
steps of the house where Margaret Mueller lived. She was sitting alone on
the veranda--clearly waiting for some one, and when she saw who was
coming up the steps she rose and hurried to them, greeting them on the
very threshold of the veranda. She was white and her bosom was
fluttering as she asked in a tense whisper:

"What do you want--quick, what do you want?"

She stood before Grant, as if stopping his progress. The child's
plaintive cry, "Mother--Grant, I want mother!" not in grief, but in a
great question, was the answer.

He looked into her staring, terror-stricken eyes until they drooped and
for a moment he dominated her. But she came back from some outpost of
her nature with reenforcements.

"Get out of here--get out of here. Don't come here with your brat--get
out," she snarled in a whisper. The child went to her, plucked her
skirts and cried, "Mother, mother." Grant pointed to the baby and broke
out: "Oh, Maggie--what's to become of Kenyon?--what can I do! He's only
got you now. Oh, Maggie, won't you come?" He saw fear flit across her
face in a tense second before she answered. Then fear left and she
crouched at him trembling, red-eyed, gaping, mouthed, the embodiment of
determined hate; swiping the child's little hands away from her, she
snapped:

"Get out of here!--leave! quick!" He stood stubbornly before her and
only the child's voice crying, "Grant, Grant, I want to go home to
mother," filled the silence. Finally she spoke again, cutting through
the baby's complaint. "I shall never, never, never take that child; I
loathe him, and I hate you and I want both of you always to keep away
from me."

Without looking at her again, he caught up the toddling child, lifted it
to his shoulder and walked down the steps. As they turned into the
street