When they entered the house, Helen hurried upstairs to the child, who had been calling for her, Mrs. Hart said. Presently the doctor came for his evening visit, and when, after a long time, he left the sickroom, Jackson met him in the hall, but lacked the courage to ask any question. The doctor spoke bruskly about the bad weather, and hurried off. Then Hart walked to and fro in the gloomy dining-room until his mother came down for dinner, which they ate in silence.

Before they had finished their meal the bell rang, and in reply to the maid\'s excuses at the door there sounded in the hall a strong woman\'s voice.

"But I must see them!"

Jackson, recognizing Venetia Phillips\'s voice, stepped into the hall.

"Oh, Jack! I have just heard that you were all here. We met Everett at the station, and he told me all about it. Jack, it was fine! I didn\'t think you had it in you, Jackie, dear. To stand up there and give everything away,—it took real stuff. I know it!" She held out her hand in enthusiastic heartiness, repeating, "It was fine, fine!" Suddenly she turned back to the door, where Coburn stood.

"You know Dr. Coburn, Jack! I brought him along, too—I was in such a hurry to see you all. Where\'s Helen?"

"Yes, I just butted in," Coburn said, laughing. "I wouldn\'t let her come without me. I wanted to shake on it, too!"

"But where\'s that sainted wife of yours?" Venetia persisted.

When Jackson told her of the boy\'s illness, she hurried upstairs without another word, leaving the two men standing in the library. At first, when they were alone, with the common memory of that last meeting in the doctor\'s rooms barely a week before, there was an awkward silence. Coburn had now an explanation for the architect\'s erratic behavior on that occasion, and he refrained from his usual blunt speech. And the architect, seeing through the mist of accumulated impressions, as in a long vista, that night after the fire when Coburn had found him half-crazed, a prey to horrible visions, could not speak. Yet that experience seemed removed from the present, as if it rose from distant years, and somehow belonged to another person. Although he had never liked Coburn in the old days, he felt a kind of sympathy in the doctor\'s bearing, and was grateful for it.

"You must have thought I was crazy the other night," the architect remarked apologetically at last. "I didn\'t know much what I was up to!"

"That\'s all right, man," Coburn interrupted warmly. "Don\'t think about it again. It was damn good luck my running across you, that\'s all. If I\'d known, of course— Say! that took sand, what you did to-day. Wheeler told Venetia all about it, and she told me. It makes a man feel good to see some one who has got the nerve to stand up and take medicine, and not try everlastingly to sneak out of things! If more folks nowadays would do that, it would be better for us all. Don\'t you mind what the papers say. They have to fling mud,—that\'s their game!"

"Well, it doesn\'t make much difference now what they say except,—except for my wife," Jackson answered dully. "And that can\'t be helped."

"Oh, I guess it won\'t last long. And somehow women don\'t mind those things half as much as you\'d think, at least the best ones don\'t. And from what Venetia says, yours is one of the best!"

"Yes! That doesn\'t make it any easier. But I haven\'t congratulated you!" he exclaimed, repressing the confession of his own pain. "She is a splendid woman, lots of spirit," he remarked awkwardly.

"I rather think so!" A pleased smile illuminated the doctor\'s grave face. "She\'s just about the best ever!"

"I hope you will be happy," Jackson continued conventionally.

"Well, we expect to—don\'t see why we shouldn\'t. I guess we know pretty much what\'s to be found on both sides, and won\'t make ourselves uncomfortable looking for what ain\'t there."

Venetia came down the stairs very quietly, her exuberance all gone, and as she entered the room she was still wiping away the traces of tears.

"Poor little Powers!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Jack! I am terribly sorry."

"What\'s the matter?" Coburn demanded.

"It\'s pneumonia, poor little man!"

Jackson\'s lip trembled beneath his mustache, as he murmured to himself:—

"Yes, I supposed it would be. It\'s as tough as it well could be, for her!"

"I know he\'ll come through,—he must!" Venetia exclaimed helplessly, and added in a burst of admiration, "That trouble couldn\'t happen to Helen—it just couldn\'t! She\'s so splendid, Jack! It\'s a big thing to know there are such women about. She\'s holding him up there now, with a smile on her face!"

Jackson turned away from her eager eyes.


Again and again during the days that followed, while they worked for the child\'s life, and when all was done watched and waited together for what might come, that miserable foreboding of the first day came back to the man. An evil fate seemed close on his heels, ready to lay hand on him here or there. The illness of the child related itself in some unseen manner with the great catastrophe of his life. The ol............