"I won't . . . give way," he mumbled. "I've put up with too much from you as it is. . . . NO!" "All right! I've done everything that is humanly possible. I've lowered my dignity sufficiently to apologize, and I've offered to forgive and forget. . . ." "Don't be melodramatic!" "Then you absolutely insist on wallowing in this filth until morning?" "I do!" Again I withdrew. So the weary hours of the night dragged slowly on. In front of the blazing fire indoors my mind constantly reverted to that cold and cheerless underground cell in which Gran'pa was doing voluntary penance for his misdeeds. I thought also of the morrow when he and Nanny were going to leave us for ever. Molly, too, claimed my worried attention. Poor little Molly! She would lose a playmate. Since Gran'pa's rejuvenescence he and Molly had been the closest of chums. They had motor-scooted; they had climbed trees; they had met as equals in the great world of juvenile fiction which littered Molly's "sanctum." In short, Gran'pa had been to her that elder brother for whom she had craved since almost the first day when she could walk and talk. And now this was to be the end--a wretched quarrel, an estrangement, a stumbling away of Gran'pa into the big dark world, which lay beyond what had been the brightest little home in Airesdale Avenue. . . . Even as I pondered on this scurvy trick of Fate's, I heard a distinct bump on the ceiling overhead. Then the patter of bare feet and a voice calling to me from the head of the stairs. "Daddy!" I darted to the door. "Yes?" "My throat's dry. . . . I feel so thirsty!" "Get back to bed, dear, and I'll bring you some milk." I went into the pantry and found what was apparently the "breakfast milk," warmed it a little, and took it up to Molly. She was in bed again, but the jumbled state of the clothes told of a very restless night. Although it was so bitterly cold, the eiderdown was on the floor, and the counterpane half off the bed, and Molly herself only partly covered. I handed her the milk and straightened the bed a little, while she sat up and swallowed the liquid greedily. "You're very flushed and feverish," I said, sitting down by her side and feeling her hot little forehead and cheeks with the back of my hand. "Do you think you've caught cold, Molly?" "I don't know, Daddy. . . . But it is hot!" She searched with her feet for cold spots under the bedclothes. "You mustn't toss the eiderdown off," I said. "Can't you get to sleep, dear?" "No-o-o! . . ." she murmured, restlessly. I placed a cool hand on her forehead again. "Is that better?" "Yes, Daddy! . . . Ever so much!" She became quieter and gently pulled my other hand into the bed and commenced cuddling it. For half an hour or more I stayed with her until she fell into a fitful sleep. Then I crept downstairs to the fire and warmed my frozen limbs and feet. That bedroom scene was the first in a long and agonizing series which lasted for over a week.