ome time later he roused from a doze in his chair. Graham was across
the bed from him, looking down. Audrey was gone. And the injured boy
stirred and opened his eyes.

"H-hello, Joey," said Graham, with a catch in his voice.

Joey lay still, his eyes taking in his new surroundings. Then he put out
a hand and touched the bandage on his head.

"What I got on?" he demanded, faintly.

Graham caught his father's eyes across the bed, and smiled a shaky,
tremulous smile.

"I guess he's all right, Father," he said. And suddenly crumpled up
beside the bed, and fell into a paroxysm of silent sobbing. With his arm
around the boy's shoulders, Clayton felt in that gray dawn the greatest
thankfulness of his life. Joey would live. That cup was taken from his
boy's lips. And he and Graham were together again, close together.
The boy's grip on his hand was tight. Please God, they would always be
together from now on.

CHAPTER IX

Clayton did not care to tell Natalie of Chris's flight. She would learn
it soon enough, he knew, and he felt unwilling to discuss the affair as
Natalie would want to discuss it. Not that he cared about Chris, but he
had begun to feel a protective interest in Audrey Valentine, an interest
that had in it a curious aversion to hearing her name in connection with
Chris's sordid story.

He and Natalie met rarely in the next few days. He dined frequently at
his club with men connected in various ways with the new enterprise, and
transacted an enormous amount of business over the dinner or luncheon
table. Natalie's door was always closed on those occasions when he
returned, and he felt that with the stubbornness characteristic of her
she was still harboring resentment against him for what he had said at
the hospital.

He knew she was spending most of her days at Linndale, and he had a
vague idea that she and Rodney together had been elaborating still
further on the plans for the house. It was the furtiveness of it rather
than the fact itself that troubled him. He was open and straightforward
himself. Why couldn't Natalie be frank with him?

It was Mrs. Haverford, punctually paying her dinner-call in an age which
exacts dinner-calls no longer--even from its bachelors--who brought
Natalie the news of Chris's going. Natalie, who went down to see her
with a mental protest, found her at a drawing-room window, making
violent signals at somebody without, and was unable to conceal her
amazement.

"It's De