ut with
passion and pride and shame and sorrow. There was he wantin' a child,
and the girl wantin' a man, and I only wantin' what God should grant all
women that give themselves to a man's arms after the priest has blessed
them. And whin all was at the worst, and it looked as if he was away
with her--the girl yonder--then two things happened. A man--he was me
own brother and a millionaire if I do say it--he took her and married
her; and then, too, Heaven's will sent this child's mother to her last
end and the child itself to my Nolan's arms. To my husband's arms first
it came, you understand; and he give the child to me, as it should be,
and said he, 'We'll make believe it is our own.' But I said to him,
'There's no make-believe. 'Tis mine. 'Tis mine. It came to me out of the
storm from the hand of God.' And so it was and is; and all's well here
in the home, praise be to God. And listen to me: you'll not come here
to take the child away from me. It can't be done. I'll not have it. Yes,
you can let that sink down into you--I'll not have it."

During her passionate and defiant appeal Jean Jacques was restless with
the old unrest of years ago, and his face twitched with emotion; but
before she had finished he had himself in some sort of control.

"You--madame, you are only thinking of yourself in this. You are only
thinking what you want, what you and your man need. But it's not to be
looked at that way only, and--"

"Well, then it isn't to be looked at that way only," she interrupted.
"As you say, it isn't Nolan and me alone to be considered. There's--"

"There's me," he interrupted sharply. "The child is bone of my bone. It
is bone of all the Barbilles back to the time of Louis XI."--he had said
that long ago to Zoe first, and it was now becoming a fact in his mind.
"It is linked up in the chain of the history of the Barbilles. It is one
with the generations of noblesse and honour and virtue. It is--"

"It's one with Abel the son of Adam, if it comes to that, and so am I,"
Norah bitingly interjected, while her eyes flashed fire, and she rocked
the cradle more swiftly than was good for the child's sleep.

Jean Jacques flared up. "There were sons and daughters of the family of
Adam that had names, but there were plenty others you whistled to as you
would to a four-footer, and they'd come. The Barbilles had names--always
names of their own back to Adam. The child is a Barbille--Don't rock the
cradle so fast," he sudden