. When she ended tears were in his eyes.
For a moment he could not control his voice.

"You did that?" he said at last. "You would have done that?"

"Why, Dad," she said, smiling, "I couldn't do anything else."

He took her suddenly in his arms and the touch of kindness broke him
down where everything else had failed. Bojo turned hastily away, not to
intrude on the sanctity of the scene. When a long moment afterwards
Patsie called him back from the window where he had been standing Drake
seemed to have grown suddenly old and feeble.

"I want you to wait here, Bojo dear," she said as determined as her
father seemed without will or energy. "I am going to settle this now. I
am going to see my mother. Don't worry."

She went out after bending lightly for a last kiss and a touch of her
hand, over the weak shoulders.

Left alone, there was a long silence. Finally Drake arose and began to
pace the floor, talking to himself, stopping from time to time with
sudden contractions of the arms, clutches of the fists, to take a long
breath and shake his head. When Bojo was least expecting it, he came to
him abruptly and said:

"Tom, I tell you this, and you may believe I mean it--that it's going to
be. Not one cent will I take from that child. With all that I provided
for the others she's not going to be left a pauper. It's got to be my
wife who stands by me in this." In his excitement he seized the young
man by the wrist so that the fingers cut into his flesh. "It's got to be
her and only her, do you understand, or else--" He stopped with a wild
glance, with a disorder that left Bojo cold with apprehension, and
suddenly as though afraid to say too much Drake dropped the young man's
wrist roughly and went and sat down, covering his face with his hands.

"I mean it," he said, and several times he repeated the phrase as though
to himself.

They spoke no more. Bojo on the edge of his chair sat staring at the
older man, turning over what he had heard, not daring to think. At the
end of a long wait a maid knocked and came in.

"Mr. Crocker, please. Miss Drake would like you to come to her mother's
room."

Bojo, startled, sprang up hastily, saying: "All right, right away." He
turned, striving to find a word of encouragement, hesitated, and went
out.

When he came into the little sitting room which gave on to Mrs. Drake's
private apartments he found the two confronting each other, Patsie erect
and scornful, with flashing, angr