disturbing memory of some
vague, lost dream and confused him. While she spoke he groped back to
the moment blindly and heard her say:

"Oh, you will help me now, this once, this once when I beg it; you will
help me?" As she spoke she clutched his arm. Her voice dropped to a
whisper. "Father, don't let them murder him--don't, oh, please,
father--for me, won't you save him for me--won't you let him out of jail
now?"

"Lila, child," the Judge held out his hand unsteadily, "it's not what I
want to do; it's the law that I must follow. Why, I can't do--"

"If Mr. Ahab Wright was in jail as Grant is and the workmen had the
State government, what would the law say?" she answered. Then she
gripped his hands and cried: "Oh, father, father, have mercy, have
mercy! We love him so and it will kill Kenyon. Grant has been like a
father to Kenyon; he has been--"

"Tell me this, Lila," the Judge stopped her; he held her hands in his
cold, hard palms. "Who is Kenyon--who is his father--do you know?"

"Yes, I know," the daughter replied quietly.

"Tell me, then. I ought to know," he demanded.

"There is just one right by which you can ask," she began. "But if you
refuse me this--by what other right can you ask? Oh, daddy, daddy," she
sobbed. "In my dreams I call you that. Did you ever hear that name,
daddy, daddy--I want you--for my sake, to save this man, daddy."

The Judge heard the words that for years had sounded in his heart. They
cut deep into his being. But they found no quick.

"Well, daughter," he answered, "as a father--as a father who will help
you all he can--I ask, then, who is Kenyon Adams's father?"

"Grant," answered the girl simply.

"Then you are going to marry an illegitimate--"

"I shall marry a noble, pure-souled man, father."

"But, Lila--Lila," he rasped, "who is his mother?"

Then she shrank away from him. She shook her head sadly, and withdrew
her hands from his forcibly as she cried:

"O father--father--daddy, have you no heart--no heart at all?" She
looked beseechingly up into his face and before he could reply, she
seemed to decide upon some further plea. "Father, it is sacred--very
sacred to me, a beautiful memory that I carry of you, when I think of
the word 'Daddy.' I have never, never, not even to mother, nor to Kenyon
spoken of it. But I see you young, and straight and tall and very
handsome. You have on light gray clothes and a red flower on your coat,
and I am in your arms hugging you,