y own way I love
you."

"I don't like your way, then," Nancy said wearily.

"We're both so poor, little girl,--that's one thing. If I were free
and could overcome my prejudice against matrimony, and could be a
little surer of my own heart and its constancy,--even then, don't you
see, practical considerations would and ought to stand in our way. I
couldn't support you, you couldn't possibly support me."

"I see," said Nancy. "Would you marry me If I were rich?" she said
slowly.

"I already have one wife," Collier Pratt smiled. Nancy remembered
afterward that he smiled oftener during this interview than at any
other. "But if somebody died, and left you a million, she might
possibly be disposed of."

For one moment, perhaps, his fate hung in the balance. Then he took a
step forward.

"Kiss me good night, dear," he said, "and let us end this bitter and
fruitless discussion."

"Kiss you good night," Nancy cried. "Kiss you good night. Oh! how dare
you!--How dare you?" And she struck him twice across his mouth. "I
wish I could kill you," she blazed. "Oh! how dare you,--how dare
you?"

"Oh! very well," said Collier Pratt calmly, wiping his mouth with his
handkerchief. "If that's the way you feel--then our pleasant little
acquaintanceship is ended. I'll take my hat and stick and my
child--and go."

"Your child?" Nancy cried aghast. "You wouldn't take Sheila away from
me."

"I don't feel exactly tempted to leave her with you," he said
deliberately. "I don't mind a woman striking me--I'm used to that; it
is one of my charming wife's ways of expressing herself in moments of
stress--but I do object to any but the most purely formal relations
with her afterward. There is a certain degree of intimacy involved in
your having charge of my child. I think I will take the little girl
away with me now."

"Please, please, please don't," Nancy said. "I love her. I couldn't
bear it now. You can't be so cruel."

"Better get it over," Collier Pratt said. "Will you call Hitty, or
shall I?"

"Sheila is in bed," Nancy cried. "You wouldn't take her out of her
warm bed to-night. I'll send her to you to-morrow at whatever hour you
ask."

"I ask for her now."

There was no fight left in Nancy. She called Hitty and superintended
the dressing of the little girl to its last detail. She could not
touch her.

"Won't you kiss me good night, Miss Dear?" Sheila said, drowsily, as
she took her father's hand at the door.

"Not to-nigh