ation which he
permitted himself he was able to give the assurance she asked. Then at
last she consented to go to bed, and wait for the doctor's coming,
before she began her preparations for joining her father in Canada. She
did not relinquish that purpose; she felt sure that he never could get
home without her; and Suzette must come, too.

IX.

The fourth morning, when Pinney went down into the hotel office at
Quebec, after a trying night with his sick child and its anxious mother,
he found Northwick sitting there. He seemed to Pinney a part of the
troubled dream he had waked from.

"Well, where under the sun, moon and stars have _you_ been?" he
demanded, taking the chance that this phantasm might be flesh and blood.

A gleam of gratified slyness lit up the haggardness of Northwick's face.
"I've been at home--at Hatboro'."

"Come off!" said Pinney, astounded out of the last remnant of deference
he had tried to keep for Northwick. He stood looking incredulously at
him a moment. "Come in to breakfast, and tell me about it. If I could
only have it for a scoop--"

Northwick ate with wolfish greed, and as the victuals refreshed and
fortified him, he came out with his story, slowly, bit by bit. Pinney
listened with mute admiration. "Well, sir," he said, "it's the biggest
thing I ever heard of." But his face darkened. "I suppose you know it
leaves me out in the cold. I came up here," he explained, "as the agent
of your friends, to find you, and I did find you. But if you've gone and
given the whole thing away, _I_ can't ask anything for my services."

Northwick seemed interested, and even touched, by the hardship he had
worked to Pinney. "They don't know where I am, now," he suggested.

"Are you willing I should take charge of the case from this on?" asked
Pinney.

"Yes. Only--don't leave me," said Northwick, with tremulous dependence.

"You may be sure I won't let you out of my sight again," said Pinney. He
took a telegraphic blank from his breast pocket, and addressed it to
Matt Hilary: "Our friend here all right with me at Murdock's Hotel." He
counted the words to see that there were no more than ten; then he
called a waiter, and sent the despatch to the office. "Tell 'em to pay
it, and set it down against me. Tell 'em to rush it."

Pinney showed himself only less devoted to Northwick than to his own
wife and child. His walks and talks were all with him; and as the baby
got better he gave himself more