he had been not
to understand! If he still had that look in his eyes, that patient
acquiescence in her will, Kate felt that she could not bear it.... But
surely he had forgotten her, now that he was with Jacqueline? Surely the
girl was lovely enough, and piteous enough in her great need of him, to
drive any other woman out of his mind?

After many miles, the mountaineer volunteered a remark: "Thar's the
school buildin's."

She saw on the rise beyond a group of log-cabins, the central one small
and old, the two wings much larger and evidently of recent construction.
In the doorway of one a man stood, looking out; and as he started down
the slope toward them Kate recognized him. It was Philip.

"Mother!--At last!" he cried out. "I would have gone to meet you, but
she could not spare me. She's been asking for you every moment.--Wait,
let me help you!"

The tone of his voice laid to rest all her misgivings with regard to
him. Even as he welcomed her, he was thinking of his wife.--As for
Philip, if he remembered a time when to call this woman "mother" would
have been like a knife-thrust in his breast, he thought only that the
time was very long ago.

Kate sprang down unaided, her fatigue forgotten. "Jacqueline?" she
demanded eagerly.

"A little stronger to-day. But--the baby--"

Kate gave a cry. Her unspoken fears had been true. "A baby?"

"Yes. It did not live.--That is why I asked you to bring little Kitty."

Kate put her hands before her eyes. "My poor little girl! Oh, my poor
little girl!--Let me go to her."

At the door she was not surprised to find Jemima, in a neat
nursing-dress, her eyes heavily lined with fatigue.

"I've been here several days. Jacky forgot to make them promise not to
send for me. She never thought of me," she explained humbly.... "Oh
Mother, it has been pretty bad! Jacky was so--so brave!" She broke down
a little in Kate's arms.

"Steady, there," whispered Philip behind them. "She can't stand any
excitement yet."

But the two had assumed charge of too many sickrooms together to need
his admonition.

Kate took off her hat, smoothed her hair, and went in to Jacqueline, as
calmly as if they had parted yesterday.

The sight of the wan, thin face among the pillows, with eyes that looked
by contrast enormous and black, shook her composure a little, and she
gathered Jacqueline up against her breast without speaking. Jacqueline,
too, was silent, clinging to her, touching her mother's ha