g for me, as she sometimes does. But when I
came in and saw my father with her, I was so astonished that for a
moment I could not speak."

"Just so. And now," here the hand of the questioner fell to caressing
the trimmed beard, tenderly, "tell me this: Your father's visit, so late
at night, and after so long an estrangement, must have had some special
reason behind it. Would you mind saying what it was?"

For a moment there was silence. Bat Scanlon saw Osborne's eyes narrow as
he watched the young man; he saw from the assistant coroner's attitude
that this was a most important question. And, more than anything else,
he saw in the pale, sweet face of the invalid girl a look of subdued
terror; the fragile hands were clasped together as though she were
praying. And at length young Burton spoke:

"I don't know that there was any reason for the visit. He gave me none."

Shower turned upon the invalid girl quickly.

"Did he say anything to you?"

"No," replied the girl, in a low tone. "No; he said nothing."

"What did he talk about?" asked Osborne.

"I do not know," said the girl, her voice even fainter than before. "I
never understood my father. He--he always frightened me by the way he
looked and the way he laughed."

She sank back, exhausted, among the pillows; her brother bent over and
spoke soothingly and encouragingly to her. When she had recovered a
little he turned once more to the others, and Scanlon saw a bitter anger
in his face--a cold, hard fury, such as only comes of a hurt that is
deep and long rankled.

"You heard what she said?" he asked. "She never understood him. How
could a girl like her understand a man like that! He frightened her by
the way he looked and the way he laughed! Do you know what that means?
It's a thing born in her--got from her mother--a mother who lived in
fear of that man for years. And then he finally drove her to her grave.
He was a monster--a human beast--he had no more remorse than----"

"Frank!" The girl's faint voice checked him. He looked down at her, the
same expression in his face as Scanlon had seen there before.

"No, she doesn't know what he talked about," the young man resumed, in a
lower tone, and with a quieter manner. "She never saw him in her life
but what she almost died through fear of him."

With a gesture the assistant coroner seemed to put aside this phase of
the matter.

"Very well," said he. "But tell us, please, what happened after you
reached hom