I give you this little
fellow, Mrs. Warriner?"

"We'll put the babies down," said Jim, rising, too, "and then, perhaps,
you'd like to look about the house, Mr. Rideout?"

"But I know how a lady feels about having her house inspected--"
hesitated the caller, with his bright, fatherly look for Anne.

"Oh, please do!" she urged them.

So the gas was lighted, and they all went into the bedroom, where Anne
tucked the children into their cribs. She stayed there while the others
went on their tour of inspection, patting her son's small, warm body in
the darkness, and listening with a smile to the visitor's cheerful
comments in kitchen and hallway, and Jim's answering laugh.

When she came blinking out into the lighted dining-room, the men were
upstairs, and Helma, to Anne's astonishment, was showing in another
caller,--and another Charles Rideout, as Anne's puzzled glance at the
card in her hand, assured her. This was a tall young man, a little
dishevelled, in a big storm coat, and with dark rings about his eyes.

"I beg your pardon, madam," said he, abruptly, "but was my father, Mr.
Charles Rideout, here this afternoon?"

"Why, he's upstairs with my husband now!" Anne said, strangely
disquieted by the young man's manner.

"Thank God!" said the newcomer, briefly. And he wiped his forehead with
his handkerchief, and drew a deep short breath.

"He--I must apologize to you for breaking in upon you this way," said
young Rideout, "but he came out in the car this afternoon, and we
didn't know where he had gone. He made the chauffeur wait at the corner
at the bottom of the hill, and the fool man waited an hour before it
occurred to him to telephone me at the house. I came at once."

"He's been here all that time," Anne said. "He's all right. Your mother
and father used to live here, you know, years ago. In this same house."

"Yes, I know we did. I think I was born here," said Charles Rideout,
Junior. "I had a sort of feeling that he had come here, as soon as
Bates telephoned. Dear old dad! He and mother have told us about this
place a hundred times! They were talking about it for a couple of hours
a few nights ago." He looked about the room as his father had done.
"They were very happy here. There--" he smiled a little bashfully at
Anne--"there never was a pair of lovers like mother and dad!" he said.
Then he cleared his throat. "Did my father tell you--?" he began, and
stopped.

"No," Anne said, troubled. He had told