ave Mercer," she said, simply.

In his despairing confusion, he sat down on the little bowlegged sofa
and looked at her; Lily, sitting beside him, put her hand on his--which
quivered at the touch. "Don't you worry! I'd never play you any mean
trick. You treated me good, and I'll never treat you mean; I 'ain't
forgot the way you handed it out to Batty! I'll never let on to anybody.
Say--I believe you're afraid I'll try a hold-up on you some day? Why,
Mr. Curtis, _I_ wouldn't do a thing like that--no, not for a million
dollars! Look here; if it will make you easy in your mind, I'll put it
down in writing; I'll say it _ain't_ yours! Will that make you easy in
your mind?" Her kind eyes were full of anxious pity for him. "I'll do
anything for you, but I won't give up my baby."

She was trying to help him! He was so angry and so frightened that he
felt sick at his stomach; but he knew that she was trying to help him!

"You see," she explained, "the first one died; now I'm going to have
another, and you bet I'm going to have things nice for her! I'm going to
buy a parlor organ. And I'll have her learned to play. It's going to be
a girl. Oh, won't I dress her pretty! But I'll never come down on you
about her. Now, don't you worry."

The generosity of her! She'd "put it down in writing"! "I _told_ Uncle
Henry she was white," he thought. But in spite of her whiteness his blue
eyes were wide with horror; all those plans, of Lily in another city,
and an unacknowledged child, in still another city--for of course _it_
could not be in Mercer any more than Lily could!--all these safe
arrangements faded into a swift vision of Lily, in this apartment, with
_it_! Lily, meeting him on the street!--a flash of imagination showed
him Lily, pushing a baby carriage! For just a moment sheer terror made
that dead Youth of his stir.

"You can't keep it!" he said again, hoarsely; "I tell you, I won't allow
it! I'll look after it. _But I won't have it here!_ And I won't ever see
you."

"You needn't," she said, reassuringly; "and I'll never bother you. That
ain't me!"

He was dumb.

"An' look," she said, cheerfully; "honest, it's better for you. What
would you do, looking after a little girl? Why, you couldn't even curl
her hair in the mornings!" Maurice shuddered. "And I'll never ask you
for a cent, if you can just make it convenient to help me in February?"

"Of course I'll help you," he said; then, suddenly, his anger fell into
despair.