* * * * * 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 you let me talk with Tom? In half an hour--I'll go. You and Lila slip over to mother's for half an hour--come back at half past twelve. I'll tell him where you are." The mother and child had disappeared around the corner of the house when the click of Van Dorn's bicycle on the curbing told the Doctor that the young man was upon the walk. The package from the capital still lay beside the porch column. The Doctor did not lift his eyes from it as the younger man came hurrying up the steps. He was flushed, bright-eyed, a little out of breath, and his black wing of hair was damp. On the top step, he looked up and saw the Doctor. "It's all right, Tom--I understand things." The Doctor's eyes turned to the parcel on the floor between them. The Doctor's voice was soft; his manner was gentle, and he lifted his blue, inquiring eyes into the young Judge's restless black ones. Dr. Nesbit put a fatherly hand on the young man's arm, and said: "Shall we sit down, Tom, and take stock of things and see where we stand? Wouldn't that be a good idea?"