"Look!" She drew a telegram from the bosom of her dress, and held it toward him. When he took it, she hid her face on his breast and shook with great sobs. He took the telegram with his free hand, flirted it open and read: "Your father ill. You had better come home at once. Dr. G. S. Larkin." "Doctor G. S. Larkin!" Garwood said, repeating the signature, "that's like him, to sign it Doctor." "Oh, but Jerome," his wife cried, "that's of no importance--how he signs it--now." And she wept afresh, as if he had added an affront to her misery. "Well, there, dear, don't cry. It's all right. Must you go, think?" He released her and she sank into the chair again. "Oh, yes," she moaned, drooping toward the fire, "I must go at once. Oh, you were so long in coming! I needed you so, and wanted you so! I ought to have gone on that train to-night." She shook her head slowly from side to side. "Poor, lonely old man!" The words half enraged Garwood, but he kept silent. He did not know what else to do--only to wait. "Where's baby?" he asked presently. "He's sleeping," she said, "in there." She waved her hand wearily toward the door. "He's all ready--we're _all_ all ready. When can we go?" "Well, you can't leave now until to-morrow," he said, trying to be tender with her. "Hadn't you better get to bed and get some rest?" "Oh--no--no," she moaned. "I couldn't sleep." "But, dear, you'll need your strength, you must try; think of baby." "Poor little fellow!" she said, as though he had been deserted. She clasped her knee in her hands and rocked back and forth. Garwood was silent, looking at her helplessly. She grew calmer after awhile, and said: "My poor little visit was doomed from the first; I knew it, Jerome." "Oh, now, don't look at it that way," said Garwood, in a big round voice. "You'll soon be back, father'll be better; he's all right. You can bring him back with you, and we'll have a good time here all together." She shook her head hopelessly. "You go telegraph, Jerome; tell them when I'm coming." Garwood was glad to escape to the office and the bar. XXI Rankin had been at home all day, helping his wife with the washing. The larder was growing lean in the Rankin home, though Rankin himself laughed with his usual optimism, and said that it would be all right again in a few days. The evening had come and he had gone out into the yard to do his chores. Though the air was cold he was in his shirt sleeves, and he went about his work singing loudly the staves of an old hymn: "'There is a land of pure delight, Where saints immortal reign; In-fi-nite day--'" "Jim!" his wife's voice called from the back door. "Yeoup!" he shouted back, and then sang on: "'--excludes the night, An' pleasures banish pain. "'There everlastin' spring abides,'" "Oh, Jim!" "Yeoup!" he shouted, as the call came the second time. "Whatch y' want?" "Come here!" "All right--