"I don't feel exactly tempted to leave her with you," he said deliberately. "I don't mind a woman striking me--I'm used to that; it is one of my charming wife's ways of expressing herself in moments of stress--but I do object to any but the most purely formal relations with her afterward. There is a certain degree of intimacy involved in your having charge of my child. I think I will take the little girl away with me now." "Please, please, please don't," Nancy said. "I love her. I couldn't bear it now. You can't be so cruel." "Better get it over," Collier Pratt said. "Will you call Hitty, or shall I?" "Sheila is in bed," Nancy cried. "You wouldn't take her out of her warm bed to-night. I'll send her to you to-morrow at whatever hour you ask." "I ask for her now." There was no fight left in Nancy. She called Hitty and superintended the dressing of the little girl to its last detail. She could not touch her. "Won't you kiss me good night, Miss Dear?" Sheila said, drowsily, as she took her father's hand at the door. "Not to-night," Nancy said hoarsely. "I've a bad throat, dear, I wouldn't want you to catch it." "I don't know where I'm going," the little girl said, "but I suppose my father knows. I'll come back as soon as I can." "Yes, dear," Nancy said. "Good-by." Collier Pratt turned at the door and made an exaggerated gesture of farewell. "We part more in anger than in sorrow," he said. "Oh! Go," Nancy cried. As the door closed upon the two Nancy sank to her knees, and thence to a crumpled heap on the floor, but remembering that Hitty would find her there shortly, and being entirely unable to regain her feet unaided, she started to crawl in the direction of her own room, and presently arrived there, and pushed the door to behind her with her heel. CHAPTER XVIII TAME SKELETONS It was Sunday night, and New Year's Eve. Gaspard was preparing, and Molly and Dolly were serving a special dinner for Preston Eustace, planned weeks before on his first arrival in New York. Before the great logs--imported by Michael for the occasion--that blazed in the fireplace, a round table was set, decorously draped in the most immaculate of fine linen, and crowned with a wreath of holly and mistletoe, from which extended red satin trailers with a present from Nancy for each guest, on the end of each. All the impedimenta of the restaurant was cleared away, and a couch and several easy chairs that Nancy kept in reserve for such occasions were placed comfortably about the room. Only the innumerable starry candles and branching candelabra were reminiscent of the room's more professional aspect.