Val had lost the sense with which she awoke of overhearing something not intended for her, and of being under the necessity of making her presence known in the first pause. The talk was just an amplification of views to which her father had accustomed her from childhood. She would have gone to sleep again, or come out and said good-night, but for the interest of seeing their effect on Ethan, who had already been wrought upon to the extent of saying that he "hated" the beautiful world. Why was he looking so black-browed and forbidding now? She must pay attention and follow this. "There'll be fewer hospitals," her father was saying, with staccato emphasis, "and less vapid sentimentalizing over those who suffer from violation of the plain laws of health." "Well, it strikes me," said Ethan, "that if the poor devil has got his weak digestion, or his gout, or what not, from some unenlightened ancestor--" "It must strike you that in that case he's in the position of the man whose father died in debt, in disgrace. The loyal son must wipe out the score." "It's devilish hard on the son. He'll say he has his own debts to pay--an obligation to himself." "As a man of honor, or"--with a gesture of impatience--"of mere sense, he will know he has no obligation so binding as to end the evil with his life, leaving no offshoot to sow the seeds anew. It is civic duty, it"--the stern voice wavered--"it is fatherly pity. When I see my little girl's eyes bright with fever--with this old fever that's been wasting me these forty years--do you suppose I find much comfort in thinking I had it from my father, and have by foolish living only augmented a little my inheritance?" He shook his lion's head fiercely. The break in her father's voice, even more than the words with their dimly comprehended menace, brought back a quick realization to the girl that her father had no notion of her presence. Should she come out now? It would be embarrassing to them all, for he was strangely moved. If she waited a few moments he would get back to generalities, and then she would come out and say good-night. But under this playing at expediency was an eager curiosity to hear more, to understand better. "What do you mean by 'this old fever'?" Ethan asked. "Well"--his uncle turned his rough head slowly to the door to assure himself it was shut--"I mean something that my mother and I agreed not to talk about. There is a word that no one ever hears mentioned under this roof. We don't mention the word because"--he sunk his voice to a whisper--"because the thing itself is here." "What is the word?" "Consumption." Ethan sat looking at him in silence. Val half rose. She must let them know she was there. But--consumption! She sank down. Was it true _that_ was the ghost that haunted the Fort? Certainly it was true that she had never heard the word on the lips of her elders.