could not now recall a feature of her face, nor a tone of her voice.
Yet when Kate's time came, this helpless invalid had herself carried up
the hill to Storm, so that the girl might not be without a woman's hand
to hold during the ordeal.

At this memory, the older Kate flushed a little. She wondered how much
the invalid had seen with her dim and weary eyes, before she closed
them.

CHAPTER V

The day came when Basil, summoned from the field to his wife's bedside,
foundered his best hunter in his haste to see his son. The doctor met
him at the door.

"It is over, and well over," he said, gravely smiling.

Mrs. Benoix added, "She never whimpered!"

"Of course not, ma'am!" said Kildare. "Neither does my dog, Juno."

He tiptoed to the bed, quietly for him, and stood gazing down at the
little wrinkled head on Kate's breast, with a queer, sheepish pride on
his face; somewhat the look of a schoolboy who receives a prize for good
behavior.

Kate smiled tremulously up at him, "Isn't she sweet?"

His face fell. "Gad, a she-child, is it? Well, can't be helped. We'll
name her for my rich Aunt Jemima. Better luck next time, Kit."

But there was not better luck next time; there was worse luck.

Less than a year later, Kildare inspected his second daughter. Kate was
sleeping, the baby beside her covered to its chin. The nurse in
attendance was the young mulatto woman who had looked so strangely at
her new mistress when she came to Storm. Now her hostility to Kate
seemed to have lost itself in devotion to Kate's child; the almost
passionate devotion that makes of colored women such invaluable nurses.

As Kildare approached, he was aware of this girl's eyes fixed upon him.
Stealthily her hand went out, and drew away the sheet that covered the
new baby.

He ripped out a startled oath. "Good God! What's the matter with it,
Mahaly? It's--it's damaged, ain't it?"

Kate awoke with a gasping cry, and put her hands out to hide the little
twisted body from his gaze.

Fortunately the child died. "Fortunately," repeated the mother to
herself now, without a quiver. To the end of her days she would carry in
her heart the memory of its faint, unbabyish moaning. It opened to her
the door of a new world, the world of suffering. She learned the agony
of love that cannot help. The little Katherine lived long enough to make
a woman of her; and strangely enough it reached the one soft spot in the
heart of Basil Kildare. During