rdly passed, when Keith was waked up again at night,
but this time by a noise as if the house was falling. As he sat up in
bed, staring wildly about him, his nostrils became filled with a smell
that was quite new to him. It was like smoke, but more pungent.

The living-room was dark, but the door to the parlour stood open, and
light came through it. Not a sound could be heard for a few moments.

Then his mother came running into the room and flung herself on her
knees beside the chaiselongue.

"Oh, my boy, my boy, my boy!" she cried over and over again as she
pressed Keith to her breast, rocking him back and forth.

A few seconds later the father also came in carrying the lamp in one
hand. Having put it on the dining table, he dropped down on a chair as
if too exhausted to stand up.

His face showed a pallor quite strange to it and for the first and only
time in his life Keith thought that his father looked scared.

"Don't, Anna," the father said after a while, sitting up straight on the
chair. "It's all right now--"

Then a thought or a memory seemed to recur to him, and he said in a
voice that nearly broke:

"God, but it was a close call for both of us! And if it had happened to
you, I would have followed you on the spot!"

"Carl, Carl!" cried the mother, letting Keith go and throwing her arms
about her husband instead. "What would have become of Keith?"

It was the first time the boy was taken into his parents' confidence to
some extent. He was still too young to grasp all the implications, but
the main facts were plain enough even to him.

The parlour was rented as usual, but the man occupying it was not at
home. The parents had gone in there together on some errand. Seeing a
small pistol hanging on the wall above the big sofa, the father took it
down and began to play with it, never for a moment suspecting it of
being loaded.

First he pointed it at himself, then at Keith's mother. Each time he was
about to pull the trigger, and each time something seemed to hold him
back. Finally he turned the weapon toward the wall and pressed down with
his finger. As he did so, the shot rang out that waked the boy.

The next day Keith was permitted to examine the mark made by the bullet
in the wall. It was all very exciting. But the final result of that
incident was as unforeseen as the shot itself.

The whole affair evidently made a deep impression on Keith's father. He
ceased almost completely to go out by hims