ning the newspaper. At last she
said:

"Aren't you going to tell me any more?"

"There isn't any more to tell. There's no use talking about it. I
believe I had some idea of selling the island when I went to Chicago,
but I don't know how I got there. I didn't know I was there until I woke
up two nights ago at a little hotel away out on the West Side. Billy
pounded on the door, and said they told him I had been asleep for
twenty-eight hours. I suppose I was dead tired out. I don't want to
speak of it again, Lois; it wasn't a particularly pleasant thing to
happen. Will you tell Mary to bring in the rest of the breakfast? I must
catch the eight-thirty train back into town. I thought you might be
bothered, so I came out first. Where are the children?"

"They are coming down now with Dosia," said his wife, helping Mary with
the dishes. Redge ran up to his father, hitting him jubilantly with a
small stick which he held in his chubby hand, and bringing irritated
reproof down upon him at once; but Zaidee, her blue eyes open, her lips
parted over her little white teeth, slid into the arm outstretched for
her, and stood there leaning against "Daddy's" side, while he ate and
drank hurriedly, with only one hand at his disposal. Poor Lois could not
help one pang of jealousy at being shut out, but she heroically
smothered it.

"Mr. Harker was here the evening before last; he brought me some money,"
she ventured at last.

"That was all right."

"And Mr. Girard was very kind; he stayed here all that night--until your
message came."

"I hope you haven't been talking about this all over the place."

"No--oh, no," said Lois, driving back the tears at this causeless
injury. "Mr. Leverich said it was best not to. Nobody knows about your
being away at all. You're not going _now_, Justin--without even seeing
baby?"

"I'll see him to-night when I come home," said Justin, rising. He kissed
the children and his wife hastily, but she followed him into the hall,
standing there, dumbly beseeching, while he brushed his hat with the
hat-brush on the table, and then rummaged hastily as if for something
else.

"Here are your gloves, if that is what you are looking for," she said.

"Yes, thank you." He bent over and kissed her again, as if really seeing
her for the first time, with a whispered "Poor girl!" That momentary
close embrace brought her a needed--oh, so needed!--crumb of comfort.
She who had hungered so insatiably for recognition