After that he seemed to forget her and slept for a while. A day or two later he forgot everything, even Johnny. The last person he remembered, curiously enough, was Miss Lydia Sampson. It was when he was dying that he said, suddenly opening those marvelous eyes and smiling faintly: "Little wet hen! Damned game little party. Stood right up to me. . . . Wish I'd married her thirteen years ago. Then there'd have been no fuss about my grandson." "_Grandson?_" said Doctor King, in a whisper to Mrs. Robertson. And she whispered back, "He is wandering." When Mary's husband arrived for the funeral and for the reading of the will (in which there was nothing "handsome" for Johnny!) the doctor told him of the new Mr. Smith's last words; and Mr. Robertson said, hurriedly, "Delirious, of course." "I suppose so," said Doctor King. But when he walked home with Doctor Lavendar, after the funeral, he said, "Have you any idea who Johnny Smith belongs to, Doctor Lavendar?" "Miss Lydia," said Doctor Lavendar, promptly. To which William King replied, admiringly, "I have never understood how anybody _could_ look as innocent as you, and yet be so chock-full of other people's sins! Wonder if his mother will ever claim him?" "Wonder if Miss Lydia would give him up if she did?" Doctor Lavendar said. "She'd have to," William said. "On the principle that a 'mother is a mother still, the holiest thing alive'?" Doctor Lavendar quoted. "On the principle of ownership," said William King. "As to a mother being a 'holy thing,' I have never noticed that the mere process of child-bearing produces sanctity." "William," said Doctor Lavendar, "Mrs. Drayton would say you were indelicate. Also, I believe you know that two and two make four?" "I have a pretty good head for arithmetic," said William King, "but I only added things up a day or two ago." CHAPTER IV AFTER Mr. Smith's death the Robertsons stayed on in Old Chester to close the house. Mary hardly left it, even to walk in the garden behind the circling brick wall. But she sent her husband on innumerable errands into Old Chester, and when he came back she would say, "Did you see--_him_?" And sometimes Johnny's father would say, "Yes." "You didn't speak to him?" she would ask, in a panic. "Of course not! But he's an attractive boy." Once he added, "Why don't you go and call on Miss Lydia--and see him yourself?" She caught her soft hands together in terror. "Go to Miss Lydia's? I? Oh, I couldn't! Oh, Carl, don't you see--_I might like him_!" "You couldn't help it if you saw him." "That's just it! I don't want to like him. Nothing would induce me to see him."