sooner than they expected.

In spite of the pounding of his heart, Steve's low-pitched question
sounded matter-of-fact enough.

"What would you say of him?"

The doctor looked the father narrowly and solemnly in the eyes. "He's a
very ill child, Mr. Earle."

Steve nodded quickly. "Is there anything I can do?"

The doctor shook his head.

Somewhere a bell rang; a nurse's skirts rustled as she passed the door.
Earle sat down, his hat on his knees, staring helplessly.

"F'ank?"

The thin little voice on the bed was shrill and complaining. The women's
heads met above it.

"Mother's here. Mother's here, darling."

"A playmate?" asked the doctor.

Earle shook his head. "No; a dog."

"F'ank?"

Earle got up, went out of the room, down the corridor, out on the porch.
He sank on a bench and buried his face in his hands.

"God!" he whispered, "I can't stand that!"

When he came back, for he could not stay away, Marian met him in the
middle of the room, her flushed face and dilated eyes raised to his.

"Steve--he's growing excited. He's wearing himself out. Go for Frank!"

Earle looked beyond her at the bed. The cheeks were crimson, the eyes
half closed; through the narrowed slits they burned upward like fire.
Earle turned to the doctor.

"What about it?"

"How long will it take, Mr. Earle?"

"Two hours."

"Yes--I should go--right away!"

Earle crossed the room to the nurse sitting beside the bed. "It won't
matter?" he asked. "It won't excite him?"

She shook her head.

He sank on his knees beside the bed, his big arm braced over the heaving
little chest, his eyes drinking in the light in those narrowed unseeing
ones.

The lips were incredibly hot.

"Old scout!" he choked in the little ear.

He did not look at the faces as he hurried out of the room, nor back at
the building when he jumped into his car. He roared through the city,
into the silent country. He glimpsed the stone mileposts flash past. He
glanced now and then at the clock in the front of the car. He had set an
almost impossible time. But he was halfway home at midnight. As he
rounded a sharp curve his lights flashed on something far ahead in the
road--a hog or perhaps a prowling dog. It sprang aside into the bushes.
He passed the spot with a roar.

Behind him Frank leaped back into the road, and stood for a moment
staring after the car. He had gotten a glimpse, a whiff--he had thought
he knew it. But that car was going the wrong w