tated. "I'm afraid--Oh, I know, I
know I don't love Tom any more. How could I--how could I? But some way I
want to mother him. I don't want to see him get clear down. I know this
woman. I know what she means. Let me tell you, father. For two years
she's been playing with Tom like a cat. I knew it when she began. I
can't say how I knew it; but I felt it--felt it reflected in his moods,
saw him nervous and feverish. She's been torturing him, father--she's
strong. Also she's--she's hard. Tom hasn't--well, I mean she's always
kept the upper hand. I know that in my soul. And he's stark, raving mad
somewhere within him." A storm of emotion shook her and then she cried
passionately, "And, oh, father, I want to rescue him--not for myself.
Oh, I don't love him any more. That's all gone. At least not in the old
way, I don't, but he's so sensitive--so easy to hurt. And she's slowly
burning him alive. It's awful."

The little pink face of the Doctor began to harden. His big blue eyes
began to look through narrow slits in his eyelids, and the pudgy,
white-clad figure stood erect. The daughter's voice broke and as she
gripped herself the father reached his bristling pompadour and cried in
wrath, "Let him burn--let him burn, girl--hell's too good for him!"

His voice was high and harsh and merciless. It restored the woman's
poise and she shook her head sorrowfully as she resumed:

"I can't bear to see it; I--I want to shield him--I must--if I can." A
tremor ran through her again. She caught hold of herself, then went on
more calmly. "But things can't go on this way. Here is this box--"

"Child--child," cried the Doctor angrily, "you come right home--right
home," he piped with rising wrath. "Right home to mother and me."

The wife shook her head and replied: "No, father, that's the easy road.
I must take the hard road." Her father's mobile face showed his pain and
the daughter cried: "I know, father--I know how you would have stopped
me before I chose this way. But I did choose and now here is Lila, and
here is a home--a home--our home, father, and I mustn't leave it. Here
is my duty, here in this home, and I must not ran away. I must work out
my life as it is--as before God and Lila--and Tom--yes, Tom, father, as
before all three, I have my responsibility. I must not put away Tom--no
matter--no matter how I feel--no matter what he has done. I won't," she
repeated. "I won't."

The father turned an impatient face to his daughter, a