wer ready. "To my father's aunt Jemima. Now I
understand why you and she have not been on good terms. I understand
many things now. When she hears that we are leaving you, and why, I
think she will be glad to offer us a home."

Kate bowed her head, "And Jacqueline? Is she, too, willing to leave me?"

At this there was a cry from inside the door, and a dishevelled, sobbing
figure flung itself into Kate's arms and clung, desperately.

"No, no, _no_! Don't let her make me. I won't, I won't! She's been
saying--oh, terrible things, Mummy! I tried not to listen. She said you
didn't love us, you loved him. She said that when he comes--that man,
Philip's father--you wouldn't want us around any more. But I know
better. No matter who comes, you'll want _me_, you'll want your baby!
Won't you, Mother? Dearest, darlingest Mother!"

"Jacky, don't be so weak," commanded her sister, sternly. "Remember what
I told you. Remember our father."

"But I never knew our father. What do I care about him? It's Mummy I
want. Whoever she loves, I love. I don't care _what_ she's done! I
wouldn't care if she'd killed Father herself--"

"Child, hush, hush!" whispered the trembling woman.

"I wouldn't! I'd just know he needed killing. There, there--" she had
her mother's head on her breast now, fondling it, crooning over it as if
it were Mag's baby. "Look--you've made her cry!" She stamped a furious
foot at her sister. "What are you staring at with your cold, wicked
eyes? You told me she was a bad woman--my _mother_! If she is, then I
choose to be bad myself. I'd rather be bad and like her than good
as--God. Now, then! Get out of here, you Jemmy Kildare!"

Jemima went. Sternly she closed her door upon the clinging pair,
shutting both out together into the world of people who were not
Kildares. But they were together.

CHAPTER XIII

The night before Jacques Benoix' release found Kate Kildare lying
sleepless within sight of a grim gray wall that blocked the end of the
street upon which her window opened. A great fatigue was upon her, a
fatigue more of the spirit than of the body. For years, it seemed to
her, she had been fighting the world alone, unaided; and now that
victory was within her grasp it tasted strangely like defeat.

She tried to realize that the gray wall no longer stood between her and
happiness; was a menace that with the sun's rays would disappear out of
her life like so much mist. But the effort was useless. The aur