ed out, and the door of the house closed noiselessly behind
them.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE DAWNING

Night had given place to red dawn, and red dawn to white day.

Dr. McPherson came out of the Grimm house and sat down on the edge of
the vine-bordered stoop. He was very tired. He had had a hard and trying
night. In his ears were still ringing the sobs of old Marta, hastily
awakened to learn of her only grandson's death;--Kathrien's quiet
grief;--Mrs. Batholommey's excited, high-pitched questionings that
jangled on the death hush as horribly as breaks the Venus music through
the Pilgrims' Chorus.

It had been a night of stark wakefulness, of a myriad details. And
McPherson had borne the brunt of it all. Now, under an opiate, Marta was
asleep. Mrs. Batholommey had trotted ponderously home to bear the black
tidings of a prisoned child's Release to her husband. And Kathrien had
gone to her own room under the doctor's gruff command to snatch an
hour's rest. McPherson himself had come out into the cool and freshness
of the new-born world for a breathing space, and to think.

The June day was young. Very young. Under the early sun the grass was
afire with dew diamonds. The flowers, dripping and fragrant, held up
their cups to the light. The town still lay asleep. Over the suburb
brooded the Hush of the primal Wilderness, creeping back furtively and
momentarily to its long-lost domain.

And presently the quiet was broken by the swift recurring click of heels
on the sidewalk. Some one was coming along the slumbrous Main street;
and coming with nervous haste. The steps turned in at the Grimm gate.
McPherson raised his blood-shot, sleep-robbed eyes and stared crossly
toward the newcomer.

It was Frederik Grimm. And, recognising him, McPherson's frown deepened
into a scowl.

"Is it true?" asked Frederik as he stopped in front of the doctor. "I
met Mrs. Batholommey. She was just passing the hotel on her way home. I
hadn't been able to sleep, so I was starting out for a walk. She told
me----"

"That Willem's dead?" finished McPherson, with brutal frankness. "Yes,
it's true. Did you suppose that it was a new vaudeville joke?"

Frederik stood blinking, blank-faced, apparently failing to grasp the
sense of the doctor's words. The younger man's aspect dully irritated
McPherson.

"Yes," he reiterated, "the boy's dead. The problem of supporting him
needn't bother you now. Not that it ever did. He's dead. And it's the
luc