vement below, he came down to see the doctor, haunted by a strange
vision. Through every day of his subsequent life the most trivial
details of that hour stood out in his memory with peculiar and terrible
vividness. From every shadow he saw Nan's face looking into his. He was
not superstitious; this impression he knew was simply a picture burned
into his tired brain by days and nights of intense longing. But what
increased the horror of the fancy was the fact that the picture changed
in quick succession, from the face of the living to the face of the
dead. He closed his eyes at last and in sheer desperation felt his way
down the last flight of stairs. The fiercer the effort he made to shut
out the picture, the more vivid it became until he found himself
shivering over the last persistent outline which refused to vanish at
any command of his will. It was the ghost of Nan's face--old, white,
pulseless, terrible in its beauty, but dead.

"Of what curious stuff we're made!" he exclaimed, pressing his forehead
as if to clear the brain of its horrible fancy. He paused in the lower
hall and watched for a moment a scene between father and daughter
through the open door of the library.

Harriet had just bounded into the room and stood beside the doctor's
chair with an arm around his neck and the other hand gently smoothing
his soft gray hair. She was crooning over his tired figure with the
quaintest little mother touches.

"You look so worn out, Papa dear--what have you been doing?"

"Something very foolish, I'm afraid, Baby--I've just refused a fortune
that might have been yours someday."

"Why did you refuse it?"

"Because I didn't believe it was clean and honest."

"Then I shouldn't want it. I'd rather be poor."

The doctor placed both hands on the fair young face, drew it very close
and whispered:

"Had you, dearie?"

"Why, of course I had!"

The big hands drew the golden head closer still and pressed a kiss on
the young forehead.

"My husband will love me, won't he? I shall not mind if I'm poor," she
went on, laughing, as Stuart entered the room.

"See, boy, how's she's growing, this little baby of mine!" the doctor
exclaimed, wheeling her about for Stuart's inspection. "It's a source
of endless wonder to me, this miracle of growth--to watch this
child--and see myself, a big brute of a man--growing, growing, slowly
but surely into the tender glorious form of a living woman--that's
God's greatest miracle! Ru