d to go.

Frona saw her to the door herself, and How-ha pondered over the white
who made the law and was greater than the law.

When the door had closed, Lucile spat into the street. "Faugh! St.
Vincent! I have defiled my mouth with your name!" And she spat
again.

"Come in."

At the summons Matt McCarthy pulled the latch-string, pushed the door
open, and closed it carefully behind him.

"Oh, it is you!" St. Vincent regarded his visitor with dark
abstraction, then, recollecting himself, held out his hand. "Why,
hello, Matt, old man. My mind was a thousand miles away when you
entered. Take a stool and make yourself comfortable. There's the
tobacco by your hand. Take a try at it and give us your verdict."

"An' well may his mind be a thousand miles away," Matt assured
himself; for in the dark he had passed a woman on the trail who
looked suspiciously like Lucile. But aloud, "Sure, an' it's
day-dramin' ye mane. An' small wondher."

"How's that?" the correspondent asked, cheerily.

"By the same token that I met Lucile down the trail a piece, an' the
heels iv her moccasins pointing to yer shack. It's a bitter tongue
the jade slings on occasion," Matt chuckled.

"That's the worst of it." St. Vincent met him frankly. "A man looks
sidewise at them for a passing moment, and they demand that the
moment be eternal."

Off with the old love's a stiff proposition, eh?"

"I should say so. And you understand. It's easy to see, Matt,
you've had some experience in your time."

"In me time? I'll have ye know I'm not too old to still enjoy a bit
iv a fling."

"Certainly, certainly. One can read it in your eyes. The warm heart
and the roving eye, Matt!" He slapped his visitor on the shoulder
with a hearty laugh.

"An' I've none the best iv ye, Vincent. 'Tis a wicked lad ye are,
with a takin' way with the ladies--as plain as the nose on yer face.
Manny's the idle kiss ye've given, an' manny's the heart ye've broke.
But, Vincent, bye, did ye iver know the rale thing?"

"How do you mean?"

"The rale thing, the rale thing--that is--well, have ye been iver a
father?"

St. Vincent shook his head.

"And niver have I. But have ye felt the love iv a father, thin?"

"I hardly know. I don't think so."

"Well, I have. An' it's the rale thing, I'll tell ye. If iver a man
suckled a child, I did, or the next door to it. A girl child at
that, an' she's woman grown, now, an' if the thing is possible,