What could he do if he were here? The children? Though all minors, the two eldest are old enough to choose and I believe I am secure in my feelings as to their choice. He will not, moreover, be charging himself with the responsibility of the children, if only I seem indifferent enough as to whether he takes them or not. Alicia he is powerless to touch. Oh, I have learned something of the weapons needed to fight such a beast. But it is his hateful presence that I cannot stomach the thought of. And that he knows also. I must send him the money and take the chance that he will really return to his accustomed lairs. It will be an uneasy time for a while, nevertheless. But too much ease would now sit queerly upon my shoulders. I shall send him the money. *CHAPTER XXIV* I have had a week of illness and it has been the happiest of my life. Alicia has been my nurse and no one, I fervently hope, will ever discover that the larger half of that week has been sheer malingering. I might have got up in three days! ’Tis late to hearken, late to smile, But better late than never I shall have lived a little while, Before I die forever. The Shropshire Lad was perfectly right in the two middle lines of his quatrain, but oddly wrong in the others. It was _not_ late to hearken or to smile. It never is late. Every moment has been heavenly for me. And who ever stops to dwell upon Purgatory once he has entered Paradise? I am very certain that by a law of spiritual physics past suffering is wiped out without a trace. If "The Rosary" were not so absurd I should sing it to myself over and over. But being constructively a convalescent why may I not be absurd? Who shall say me nay? So being alone, I am humming the tune of "The Rosary" over and over and taking my pleasure in it. The hours I have spent with Alicia no one can take from me. What a petulant patient I have been! I chuckle as I think of it. It’s like _Felix Culpa_. Happy grippe-cold! Alicia, let us say, brings me some broth upon a tray. "Will you be comfortable, Uncle Ranny," she asks with concern in her voice, "until I come back with the rest?" "No!" growls the eccentric uncle. "Not a bit of it. I want company while I eat." Alicia laughs softly. "But who is going to prepare the other tray, while Griselda is so busy?" "Don’t care," mutters the grouchy invalid. "I want company. If I let you go now, will you bring up your own luncheon and eat it here?" "But that makes such a lot of dishes, Uncle Ranny." "Don’t care. I’m obstinate, fussy, irritable, sick. Have to be humored. Ask the doctor!" Alicia peals a delicious silvery laugh and then I see a film as of tears in her eyes. "All right—I’ll humor you, Uncle Ranny. But I should think you’d be sick of seeing me round by this time!" "Am sick," growl I. "Get a colored nurse to-morrow!" Whereupon I hear Alicia’s laughter all the way down the stairs.