followed by commotion at Major Dwight's.

CHAPTER XX

A MOTHER'S DREAD

Little Jim came over somewhat earlier than usual in the morning. He had
returned to his own room adjoining his father's as soon as the
physicians deemed it wise to permit, and the permission was given
earlier than others might have deemed wise because the doctors, both
senior and junior, agreed that Dwight's recovery would be retarded if
the boy were not close at hand, with his fond smile and caressing touch,
eager to answer the faintest call. There was something more than
pathetic in the way the somber deep-set eyes of the weak and broken man,
so infinitely humbled in his own sight, now followed Jimmy's every
movement about the room, and as soon as Dwight was strong enough to
leave his bed for a moment at a time he would be up again and again
during the night hours to gaze into Jimmy's sleeping face, to softly
touch his hand or forehead. Stratton, of the hospital force, detailed
for duty with the major, told later how the big tears would gather in
the major's eyes as he bent over the unconscious sleeper; how, many a
time he would find the major kneeling by the bedside, his lips moving in
prayer. Marion's eyes welled over when this was told her, though it
could hardly have been news. She and all who knew him in the old days
must have known how, with clearing faculties, the strong and resolute
man would suffer in the consciousness of the cruel wrong he had done his
boy, must have realized the depth of his contrition, and probably
guessed with fair accuracy the intensity of his grieving and of his
thoughts of her--the wife he had so utterly loved, so sadly
lost--Margaret, the devoted mother of his only son.

And realizing this, there had come a vital question to the mind of
Marion Ray. What was to be now the father's attitude toward this
girl-wife--she who had been set in Margaret's place, never for a moment
to fill it? All Minneconjou was asking itself what would be her status,
this beautiful young creature, when reason fully resumed its sway and
Dwight was once more able to assume the reins of domestic authority?
Thus far all that was known was that estrangement existed. She, herself,
had sobbingly told her story to eager if not always sympathetic souls.
"He turns from me almost in loathing--he for whom I would gladly die!"
was her melodramatic utterance to one of her hearers, and it was quite
enough to start the story that there would c