He stepped three paces to the front. "Yes, sir." "How did this--how did this happen?" said Trescott. Now Jimmie could have explained how had happened anything which had happened, but he did not know what had happened, so he said, "I--I--nothin'." "And, oh, look at her frock!" said Mrs. Trescott, brokenly. [Illustration: "'LOOK!' SHE DECLAIMED"] The words turned the mind of the mother of the angel child. She looked up, her eyes blazing. "Frock!" she repeated. "Frock! What do I care for her frock? Frock!" she choked out again from the depths of her bitterness. Then she arose suddenly, and whirled tragically upon her husband. "Look!" she declaimed. "All--her lovely--hair--all her lovely hair--gone--gone!" The painter was apparently in a fit; his jaw was set, his eyes were glazed, his body was stiff and straight. "All gone--all--her lovely hair--all gone--my poor little darlin'--my--poor--little--darlin'!" And the angel child added her heart-broken voice to her mother's wail as they fled into each other's arms. In the mean time Trescott was patiently unravelling some skeins of Jimmie's tangled intellect. "And then you went to this barber's on the hill. Yes. And where did you get the money? Yes. I see. And who besides you and Cora had their hair cut? The Margate twi--Oh, lord!" Over at the Margate place old Eldridge Margate, the grandfather of the twins, was in the back garden picking pease and smoking ruminatively to himself. Suddenly he heard from the house great noises. Doors slammed, women rushed up-stairs and down-stairs calling to each other in voices of agony. And then full and mellow upon the still air arose the roar of the twins in pain. Old Eldridge stepped out of the pea-patch and moved towards the house, puzzled, staring, not yet having decided that it was his duty to rush forward. Then around the corner of the house shot his daughter Mollie, her face pale with horror. "What's the matter?" he cried. "Oh, father," she gasped, "the children! They--" Then around the corner of the house came the twins, howling at the top of their power, their faces flowing with tears. They were still hand in hand, the ruling passion being strong even in this suffering. At sight of them old Eldridge took his pipe hastily out of his mouth. "Good God!" he said. * * * * * And now what befell one William Neeltje, a barber by trade? And what was said by angry parents of the mother of such an angel child? And what was the fate of the angel child herself?