ellied rascal--make him see it: make him see how he warned her
against the symptoms, but not the disease that was festering her lover's
soul!"

"Turn yourself," cried the second, "make the forehead sweat as he sees
how he has been delivering laws in a basket to grind iniquity through
Tom Van Dorn's mill! Turn--turn, turn you lout!"

"And you," cried the third fate at the screw to the first, "twist that
heart-string, twist it hard when he sees his daughter's broken face and
hears her sobbing!"

But the angels, the pitying angels, loosened the cords of the rack with
their gentle tears.

* * * * *

As the taut threads of the rack slackened, he heard the soft voice of
his daughter saying: "But of course, the most important thing is
Lila--not that she means a great deal to him now. He doesn't care much
for children. He doesn't want them--children."

She turned upon her father and with anguished voice and with all her
denied motherhood, she cried: "O, father--I want them--lots of
them--arms full of them all the time."

She stretched out her arms. "Oh, it's been so hard, to feel my youth
passing, and only one child--I wanted a whole house full. I'm strong; I
could bear them. I don't mind anything--I just want my babies--my babies
that never have come."

And then the pitiless fates turned the screws of the rack again and the
father burst forth in his vain grief, with his high, soft, woman's
voice. "I wonder--I wonder--I wonder, what God has in waiting for you to
make up for this?"

Before she could answer, the telephone bell rang. The wife stepped to
the instrument. "Well," she said when she came back. "The hour has
struck; the expressman went to Tom for the express charges; he knows the
package is here and," she added after a sigh, "he knows that I know all
about it." She even smiled rather sadly, "So he's coming out--on his
wheel."

CHAPTER XXII

IN WHICH TOM VAN DORN BECOMES A WAYFARING MAN ALSO

The father rose. His head was cast down. He poked a vine curling about
the porch floor with his cane.

"I wonder, my dear," he spoke slowly, and with great gentleness, "if
maybe I shouldn't talk with Tom--before you see him."

He continued to poke the vine, and looked up at the daughter sadly. "Of
course there's Lila; if it is best for her--why that's the thing to
do--I presume."

"But father," broke in the daughter, "Tom and I can--"

But he entreated, "Won't