t have anything more from you while I can
stand between. Don't you trouble for him. You go on from strength to
strength and the people will praise your hard work and your goodness to
the workers--such a pattern master as you'll be."

"May time make you feel differently, Sabina," he answered. "I've
deserved this--all of it. I'm quite ready to grant I've done wrong. But
I'm not going to do more if I can help it. I want to be your friend in
the highest and worthiest sense possible. I want to atone to you for the
past, and I want to stand up for your child through thick and thin, and
bear the reproach that he must be to me as long as I live. I've weighed
all that. But power can challenge the indifference of the State and the
cowardice of the Church. The dirty laws will be blotted out by public
opinion some day. The child can grow up to be my son and heir, as he
will be my first care and thought. Everything that is mine can be his
and yours--"

"That's all one now," she said. "He touches nothing of yours while I
touch nothing of yours. There's only one way to bring me and the child
into your life, Raymond Ironsyde, and that's by marrying me. Without
that we'll not acknowledge you. I'd rather go on the streets than do it.
I'd rather tie a brick round your child's neck and drown him like an
unwanted dog than let him have comfort from you. And God judge me if
I'll depart from that if I live to be a hundred."

"You're being badly advised, Sabina. I never thought to hear you talk
like this. Perhaps it's the fact that I'm here myself annoys you. Will
you let my lawyer see you?"

"Marry me--marry me--you that loved me. All less than that is insult."

"We must leave it, then. Would you like me to see my child?"

"See him! Why? You'll never see him if I can help it. You'd blast his
little, trusting eyes. But I won't drown him--you needn't fear that.
I'll fight for him, and find friends for him. There's a few clean people
left who won't make him suffer for your sins. He'll live to spit on your
grave yet."

Then she left the room, and he got up and went from the house.

BOOK II

ESTELLE

CHAPTER I

THE FLYING YEARS

But little can even the most complete biography furnish of a man's days.
It is argued that essentials are all that matter, and that since one
year is often like another, and life merely a matter of occasional
mountain peaks in flat country, the outstanding events alone need be
chronicled with a