MacLachan went stark, staring sober in one pulse-beat. But all he said was “Oh!” That is all, I am told, that men say when they are shot through the heart. Nelson slid a chair behind his friend's trembling knees. He sat down. Bending forward, he glared into the garishly splotched face of his daughter and put his hand to his throat, struggling for speech. A door behind closed, and a cheerful, boyish voice said:-- “Hello, little girl. Been waiting long?” The wild-rose face dimpled and blossomed into sweetness under the layers of paint. “Hello, Jim-boy. Get yourself a chair.” “Introduce me to your friends,” said the newcomer. “That one used to be my old dad,” said the girl slowly. The young man whistled as he drew in his chair. “Quite a family party,” he remarked. “Who is this?” demanded MacLachan. “My husband.” “Your--your husb--” MacLachan took a deep gulp from the lemonade glass which the resourceful captain thoughtfully thrust into his hand. “Why, he--he's a mere laddie. Can he support ye?” “He's making seventy-five a week every week in the year,” said the girl quietly. “And I'm good for about that average.” “You? In what trade?” demanded the father slowly and fearfully. “The movies. Both of us. He's a set designer. I'm an _ingénue_. Why else would I be all gommered up like this” (she touched her cheeks), “not having time to wash off my make-up?” “How long have ye been in the business?” faltered MacLachan. “Since I left. It was hard at first.” “When I saw ye in the street that day--” She nodded. “Yes; I was just out of rehearsal.” Then the devil's pride of the Scot, recalling with fierce self-pity his long heartbreak and loneliness, rose in a flame of resentment and seared the flowering love in his heart. “Ye gave me no word,” he snarled, rising. “Ye knew I was killing myself for lo--, for shame of ye, and ye let be. What do I owe ye but a curse!” [Illustration: What do I owe ye but a curse 174] “That's enough,” said the boy husband; but his voice had become that of a man. “Dad!” cried the girl. MacLachan, the dour, turned away. Nelson set a hand on his arm, but he struck it down. “Oh, Jim-boy!” whispered the girl to her husband. “I can't let him go again.” He was a youth of resource, that husband; I'm not prepared to say that he didn't have even a touch of genius. “Granddad!” he said. “Eh?” MacLachan stopped, as if stricken in his tracks. “What do you think of her?” Jim-boy had produced, quick as conjuring, a little leather-mounted photograph which he held up before MacLachan's eyes. “Did Meg look like her when she was a baby?” “The varra spit an' image,” cried MacLachan, reverting to his broadest Scotch. Then, with a cry that shook him: “My bairnie!” Meg went to his arms in a leap.