“Lionel--just Lionel, that's all,” the child said, and he raised Galt's hand in both of his own and pressed it. “Most people have two names, but I've never had but one. I don't know why. Do you? I asked my mother about it one day when Mrs. Chumley was talking mean to her about me, and mamma went off to her room and cried. Grandmother told me never to speak of it to her again. My mother has two names--Dora Barry.” Kenneth Galt felt as though his soul had suddenly died within him. The bonny head of his own child lay on his breast, its throbbing warmth striking through to his pulseless heart. Margaret sat rigid and speechless, and General Sylvester, in his desire to shield her, began chattering irrelevantly. The long shadows of the descending sun crawled across the grass toward the hill in the east. The golden head remained where it lay, the tiny and yet vigorous fingers twined themselves about the larger inanimate ones. The eyelids over the boy's big, dreamy orbs wavered and drooped. He was tired and sleepy. He heaved a long, fragrant sigh and nestled more snugly into the arms that held him. A great, voiceless yearning born of the long-buried paternal instinct fired the dry tinder--the driftwood of years of misguided loneliness--in the man's being. A great light seemed to burst and blaze above him. He sat with his gaze on the old man's face, but in fancy he felt himself kissing the parted lips of that marvel of creation--Dora's child and his. CHAPTER IV |SIX years had wrought a wonderful change in Gate City. It had increased in size and importance. Stephen Whipple was still the only wholesale grocer of the place, and Fred Walton had become his chief assistant. He was known to be the old man's special favorite, and was living on the footing of a son in the Whipple household. On the day that Kenneth Galt had returned to Stafford, Fred and his employer were seated in the old man's private office. Whipple had opened his heart to him in regard to a certain financial development which had gone against his interests. The old grocer's pride had been wounded as it had never been wounded before. Since the starting of the business he had been specially proud of the fact that he had been able to supply the retail dealers of Gate City with the groceries consumed by their customers as cheaply as any of the far-off markets could do, even with the freight cost added.