Nor is it to be taken for granted that Mr. Bingle slept well on this night before Christmas. Neither he nor his wife went to bed until far along in the wee sma' hours. The great house was as still as the grave, save for the occasional crack of shrinking woodwork and the rattle of dislodged icicles on the window-ledges outside. The wind had died away. It seemed that all nature, respecting their mood, had hushed its every noise in order that they might think, and think, and think on without hope or a single sign of promise in this time of despair. They were to lose Kathleen. The man had been somewhat vague about it, but the situation was clear to them, even though it was not so to him. Their claim to the child--the one they loved best of all--was no longer undivided. A real father had turned up to assert his rights. They might dispute his claim and make the affair so awkward and so unpleasant for him that he would withdraw, but what would be their gain? The man existed. He was the real father. Kathleen was the flesh and blood of this tardy penitent, this betrayer of women, this coward. Never again, so long as she lived, could she be looked upon as theirs. Even though she remained with them, and in perfect contentment, there would still be the sinister shadow lying across the path--the shadow of a man hiding, of a man who dared not come out into the open but whose everlasting presence was a threat. They did not know this man, they did not know whether he was a blackguard or a gentleman. He was a destroyer; that much they knew. He had wrecked a human life. The detective had declared to Mr. Bingle that his client was a man of means, married, and eminently respectable, but then a detective's idea of respectability is not always a safe one to go by. Every man is respectable until some one is hired to prove that he isn't. When Mr. Force rang the front door-bell, Mr. and Mrs. Bingle were seated before the fire in the library. Kathleen sat upon the former's knee. The rest of the children had been sent off to the huge playroom on the top floor, and their distant shrieks, muffled by the thicknesses of many doors and walls, came faintly down to the fireside. With the subdued, even refined jingle of the door-bell, the two Bingles straightened up in their chairs and looked into each other's eyes, suddenly apprehensive. Who could be calling on them at such an early hour? Was it some one in connection with this unhappy business? Could it be possible that they had come to take Kathleen away so soon? "Better run upstairs, now, Kathie," said Mr. Bingle, abruptly. "Skedaddle! Go up the back way, dear." He thought of the back-stairs just in time. It wouldn't do for her to encounter the strange, perhaps unfeeling emissaries in the main hall. No telling what they might do. They might even take forcible possession of her and be off before help could be summoned.