an
God only knows. It's mystery to me. But what isn't mystery to me is that
we're all done for. Now that she's gone, we're all gone--the lot of us.
I've kept up till now--"

"If money will do any good, Fay--" Thor began, with a catch in his
voice.

"No, Dr. Thor; not now. Money might have helped us once, but I ain't
going to take a price for my little girl's unhappiness."

"But what _would_ do good, Mr. Fay?" Lois asked. "If you'd only tell
us--"

"Then, ma'am, I will. It's to let us be. Don't come near me nor mine any
more--none o' you."

She turned to Thor. "Thor, is it true that Claude wanted to marry Rosie?
I've never heard of it."

"Oh yes, ma'am, you have," Fay broke in, with irony. "We've all heard of
that kind o' marriage. It's as old as men and women on the earth. But it
don't go down with me; and if I find that my little girl has been taken
in by it, then I sha'n't be to blame if--if some one gets what he
deserves."

The words were uttered in tones so mild that, as he shuffled away,
leaving them staring at each other, they scarcely knew that there had
been a threat in them.

CHAPTER XXIII

It was an incoherent tale that Thor stammered out to Lois as he and she
walked homeward. By trying to tell Claude's story without including his
own he was, for the first time since the days of school-boy escapades,
making a deliberate attempt at prevarication. He suppressed certain
facts, and over-emphasized others. He did it with a sense of humiliation
which became acute when he began to suspect that he was not deceiving
her. She walked on, saying nothing at all. Now and then, when he
ventured to glance at her in profile, she turned to give him a sick, sad
smile that seemed to draw its sweetness from the futility of his
efforts. "My God, she knows!" were the words actually in his mind while
he went floundering on with the explanation of why he couldn't allow
Claude to be a cad.

And yet, except for those smiles of an elusiveness beyond him, she
betrayed no hint of being stricken in the way he was afraid of. On the
contrary, she seemed, when she spoke, to be giving her mind entirely to
the course of Claude's romance. "He won't marry her. He'll marry Elsie
Darling."

An hour ago the assertion would have angered him. Now he was relieved
that she had the spirit to make it at all. He endeavored to imitate her
tone. "What makes you think so?"

"I know Claude. She's the sort of girl for him to marry. Ther