Toward the child of his friend, and of his friend's wife, Blake felt not as men in his place would have felt. The love that he had for the dainty little thing of gold-brown hair, and gold-brown cheeks, and straight, sturdy little legs was the love of a man for his own. It seemed to him, almost, that she was flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood, bone of his bone. It was the "almost" that hurt; for she was the child of the woman he loved, and of another man.... To love the wife of another man is a bitter thing--a bitter thing. To love with dishonor is not hard; but to love with honor were hard indeed. To go away, so loving, were to render more easy to bear the thing that must be borne. To stay--to see day by day the happiness that lieth beyond hope, were to stand in hell and gaze at heaven. And this were most bitter, most hard, of all. Yet this was what Blake had done. This was what Blake would do; and it was what he expected to keep on doing until there was no such thing as time and the souls of all men were dead. He did it because all that lay for him in life lay there, even though not the tiniest bit of it could he claim for his own. And he was a man of heart, as well as of head, and honor. Perhaps it was because he had loved the woman who was the wife of his friend, since the day when she was as her daughter was now; that his love for the little one that was of her transcended all else in his being--all else save the one thing that he never mentioned, not even to himself. SHE had been like that; a dainty, pretty, loving, simple, naive, sturdy, rugged little thing, with wind-blown hair, and sun-tanned cheeks and legs--soft, gentle, infinitely appealing, generous, loving. In the little one that was of her, he saw her again, violet-eyed, glowing with the glorious abundance of vigor, building wondrous castles of blue beach clay, counting the soaring gulls against the soft blue of summer skies, wandering, laughingly, through daisy fields, rolling, a whirling little tumult of lace and ribbons and wildly-waving bare legs down the stacks of fragrant hay. She had been like that. Small wonder that on her child he lavished all the choked tenderness that cried, sometimes, so, so piteously for outlet. And as for the child--'way, down deep in her little heart, she had builded of the infinity of her love, three sky-reaching heaps, each one bigger, and more wonderful than the other. One of these she gave to her mother; one to her daddy; and one to "Mr. Tom." And she deemed herself not undutiful, nor lacking in filial amity, for so doing. Kathryn had followed her sister into the house. Left alone with Blake, Muriel ran swiftly to him, bounding to his knee, and clasping around his neck strong little arms. "Mr. Tom," she cried, "you haven't told me a story for most a year!" He held her to him.