held out in a gesture of despairing appeal.

"Daddy, Daddy, he will--he will be happy, won't he?" she cried. "I--I
just need him to be happy, more--yes, more than anything in the world.
Sure, sure, she'll make him happy? Oh, if she doesn't!"

Still the man looked on, a helpless spectator of the girl's suffering.
Nor did it seem that his own was any less. But Nan seemed to realize
the weakness in her momentary display. Her hands dropped to her side.
There was even a visible effort in the manner in which she strove for
self-mastery. Her smooth brow puckered in an intense frown, and, to
Bud, it almost seemed that she was literally clenching her teeth to
hold back the passionate distress which was seeking to find expression.

After a moment something of full self-possession seemed to return to
her. She smiled. But it was a smile that lacked conviction. A smile
that almost broke her father's heart.

"Tell me, Daddy," she pleaded. "Do you think--he'd--he'd have me be
a--a bridesmaid? Would it sort of help him any?" she hurried on. "You
see, I--I want him to be real happy. I want him to feel that we just
love him, and that--that--we're just glad for him, and--and nothing in
the world else matters--to anybody. I'm so----"

There was a little catch of breath. The words she would have spoken
died upon her lips. She reeled. Every vestige of color left her
pretty face, and her eyes half closed. Just for one weak instant her
hands groped behind her for the chair. Then, the next, Bud was at her
side, and one strong arm was supporting her.

"Don't, Nan!" he cried, in his heavy cumbersome way. And the sound of
his deep voice alone served to ward off the encroachment of that final
weakness which, in spite of all her courage, the girl was at last
compelled to yield to.

Bud drew her to him, and one hand smoothed her pretty brown hair with
rough tenderness. For a moment her head rested against his broad
bosom. Then a deep sigh came, and Nan looked up, smiling into the
steady gray eyes gazing down at her, through a mist of welling tears.

"My dear--dear old Daddy," she murmured, as the tears finally
overflowed and slowly rolled down her cheeks.

CHAPTER XIV

THE KNOCKING ON THE DOOR

It seemed like the hand of Destiny that Elvine van Blooren should
wander across the path of Jeffrey Masters at a moment when all the
fruits of his ambition seemed to be falling into his outspread-hands.
It was surely the