"Lay him down. If you have killed him, it is the fit ending of all my wrongs at your hands. Now stand back! Back! Do you hear--you curse of my life!" She sponged the child's face, laid a wet compress on his throat, and kept one finger on his pulse, not daring to give medicine while the narrowing red stream oozed more slowly. She lighted a lamp, flew into a recess near the stove, and came back with a hypodermic syringe. "Now, mother's man, don't flinch." Pushing up the sleeve, she injected a colorless fluid into his arm, held it some seconds, and laid her lips near the puncture. Then with one hand she held his head raised slightly, and with the other sponged the lips until the flow ceased and the gasping breath grew easy. "Swallow your medicine slowly, don't strangle. You must lie perfectly still. Mother's own little man needs to go to sleep now and forget all he has heard to-day." Father Temple had fallen on his knees at the opposite side of the cot, clinging to one of the boy's hands, and suddenly the child turned his head and looked imploringly, first at father, then at mother. Both understood the mute prayer in the beautiful, tender eyes. A quavering sound--part sob, part cough--made their hearts leap. "I never will be fatherless any more. So glad! Don't leave me, father." "Leighton, you shall always be fatherless. This man can be nothing to us. Because of his deceitful promises I suffered the disgrace of smarting from a horse-whip laid on my shoulders when one night I was driven out of my father's cabin by his wife, and to shelter myself from sleet and rain crawled into a covered wagon and slept on hay and corn, until Uncle Dane found me there, and had mercy on me. I owe to this priest every sorrow and trouble that have darkened my life and yours. All these years we have had only each other, and you must understand your mother is the one who has the sole right to your love. My darling, you and mother can be happy together, and we need only each other." She struggled for composure, but there was an ominous pant in her veiled voice. "I want my father! Oh, I want him--I--want him!" Tears glided over his cheeks. She leaned down, snatched Leighton's hand from the priest's clasp, clutching it between both of hers, and turned her blazing eyes upon the kneeling man. "Will you go now? Have you not done harm enough to satisfy even you? These are my rooms, and I will tolerate your intrusion no longer. Remember, my decree of divorce is absolute, and it secures to me the custody of my child."