"Daddy"--the boy hesitated; his words hung as if entangled in a fear of refusal--"let me stay in your bed till you come home. I am not afraid. I don't want to sleep in there with Hilda. I don't like her." Till he came home! The words seemed to sink into and surge back from the core of his accumulated remorse. Till he came home, perhaps near dawn, reeking with the odor of licentiousness--the very licentiousness he was praying that his child might not be drawn into. He put his hand on the little brow. He bent and kissed it. He felt his resistance falling away from him like the severed thongs of a prisoner. A force was entering him which mere flesh could not combat. He slid his hand under the child to raise him up, and felt the little body bound in surprised delight toward him. He pressed the soft form to his breast. He felt the keen pain of restrained emotion within him. Taking the boy in his arms, he sat down in a rocking-chair, holding him as a mother might an adored infant. "Do you want Daddy to rock you to sleep?" he asked. "Oh, will you, Daddy, will you?" "Yes." Mostyn stroked the soft cool legs caressingly and pressed the child's brow against his cheek. The boy was quiet for a moment; then his father felt him stir uneasily. "What is it now?" he inquired. "When I get to sleep what are you going to do with me?" Mostyn thought rapidly. "I'll put you in my bed," he said, slowly. Then he added, with firmness: "I'll go down to the library and read the papers, and then I'll come back and sleep with you. I shall not go away to-night." The child said nothing. He simply put both his arms about his father's neck, kissed him on the cheek, and cuddled up in his arms. CHAPTER VII One morning, during the middle of that week, as Saunders was on his way to the bank, he was surprised to meet Dolly coming out of one of the big dry-goods shops. She wore a new hat and an attractive linen dress he had never seen her wear before. She smiled and flushed prettily as she extended her hand. "You were not expecting to see this mountain greenhorn down here, were you?" she laughed. "As for me, I hardly know which end of me is up. I don't see how you can live in all this whizz, bustle, smoke, and dust." "I am wondering what miracle brought you," he answered.