s
truth, Joel, that the sweet old soul loves you and me and the children
so much now that she would not leave us even--even for John. She let
that out this afternoon while Tilly was sleeping in her lap. The very
thought of going started her to crying, and it was some time before I
got her quiet."

Tilly's hand actually touched his neck, but Joel still felt that he had
no right to clasp it. The wild thought of grasping it and drawing his
wife's lips down to his possessed him, but he promptly killed the
impulse. Grimly he told himself that he would be fondling a shadow,
feasting on a husk.

Suddenly she drew her hand away. "I'm awfully tired to-night," she
sighed. "I'll go to bed, but you needn't hurry. Shall I fill your
pipe?"

"No, thank you," he said, rising as courteously as of old. "I sha'n't
smoke any more to-night."

"Well, good night," she said.

"Good night," he echoed.

The flare from the lime-kilns and the brickyards lit the cliffs, hills,
and sky. He beard the town clock striking ten. Little Joel had waked,
and his mother was gently telling him to go to sleep. The child wanted
water. Tilly went to the kitchen for it, and the father heard her
sweetly cooing as she held the cup for his son to drink. What a marvel
that--_his son and hers_.

CHAPTER XI

"John is not coming. I see that plain enough from this letter,"
Cavanaugh announced to his wife at noon one day, as he entered the
sitting-room where she sat sewing on a machine.

"Why, what's wrong?" the old woman asked, in a tone of disappointment.

"I can't tell exactly," Cavanaugh answered. "It is all round about, with
this reason and that. He seems to have a mistaken idea that it will stir
up an awful rumpus in the papers. He wants to help his mother, and says
for me to see her and tell her so. He is willing to make a substantial
settlement on her, but she wouldn't take it. Do you hear me? She
wouldn't have scraps thrown at her like that. If he came here and made
it up she might let him help, but she'll never accept it that way. I am
disappointed in him. After the way I wrote, he ought to have come and
been done with it."

Mrs. Cavanaugh adjusted her glasses, took the letter and read it, moving
her wrinkled lips as she slowly intoned the words. Then she handed it
back.

"Man that you are," she sniffed, "you don't see what ails him. He
doesn't once mention Tilly, but in every line there he is thinking of
her and her happiness. He'd lov