It was three whole days before Margaret saw Richard De Jarnette again. She was wounded and outraged beyond the power of words to express at his apparent neglect. Under the circumstances it seemed almost brutal. She did not even have Mrs. Pennybacker with her, for when the doctor went for her he found her so unwell herself that he had not told her about Philip, fearing that she would overtax her strength to go to them. Margaret agreed with him that this was best, but her heart cried out for somebody to lean upon.

As night came on she found herself listening for his step with an eagerness that appalled her—appalled her and filled her with rage and humiliation as well. But she did not hear it.

Even Philip felt the restlessness which comes from an expected presence delayed—fretting, "I want Unker Wichard to hold me."

"Mama will hold you, darling. Uncle Richard is not here."

"But I want Unker Wichard."

It seemed to her that her heart would break. Not only had this man blighted both their lives but he had stolen her place in the child's heart, and then—left them. It was the way with men.

Philip was so insistent that Mammy Cely said at last, "Yo' Uncle Richard ain't gwine come back to-night, honey. He done say so." Then to Mrs. De Jarnette, "No'm, I don't know whar he went. But look lak he was powerful anxious to git away, for some cause whatsomever. It did so." She had not been told about the new danger.

The doctor came out early the next day and had a plain talk with her.

"He is threatened with choroiditis, an affection of the eyes that sometimes follows febrile diseases. So long as the trouble is confined to the outer regions of the choroid, it was not dangerous, but I feel it my duty to say to you that if it should attack the central field of vision it would be likely to result in gradual blindness. But he has many things in his favor and we will hope for the best. In the meantime, he should be under the care of a specialist. I do not feel competent to treat him. It was this that I was intending to say to you yesterday when the worst was forced upon you by your unfortunately overhearing the words between Mr. De Jarnette and myself."

He went on to say that he had tried to get Dr. Helsor, a Washington specialist, out to see him, but that he was ill and could not come. He had wanted to get expert advice before saying anything to alarm her, etc. Perhaps it might be a good plan to take him to Johns Hopkins to the hospital or even to Philadelphia. If she desired he would go with her and make arrangements for his admission. What did she think about it?

She felt that she could not give him an answer. Now that she was the sole arbiter of Philip's fortunes she was strangely loth to take upon herself the burden of decision. If she could only talk it over with—with Mrs. Pennybacker, she told herself weakly. It was Mrs. Pennybacker she wanted to take counsel with. In her inmost heart—the one we cannot delude—she knew it was Richard. Richard De Jarnette! The hot blood crimsoned her face at the shame of it.

In these weeks in the sick room she had fallen into the habit of leaning upon his judgment which was always calm and dispassionate. When she had tried to excuse this to the doctor he had replied in a matter-of-fact way that it was not unnatural nor to be regretted. In a case of severe illness the person closest to the patient was not usually the one that had the best judgment. She reminded herself often afterwards of this, saying that that was why she relied so on him. Now that he was gone she felt strengthless.

Judge Kirtley came out on the first train and walked over from the station to tell her the astounding news that Mr. De Jarnette had thrown up the case. He had been to his (Judge Kirtley's) office late the afternoon before to say that he desired to have the case settled out of court and was prepared to relinquish all claims to the child under the will now and hereafter.

"Did he tell you about Philip?"

"Philip? No. Nothing more than I have said. He seemed in great haste to get away, for some reason, and not inclined to talk. What is it about Philip? He's doing all right, isn't he?"

When he heard from her the story of the doctor's fears, and of Richard's renunciation of the child, his scorn and wrath knew no bounds.

"The cur!" he cried. "The cowardly cur!"

Then to his amazement Margaret turned upon him.

"It is not that," she said firmly, with an intuitive conviction that leaped past the very natural view the Judge had taken. "It was not the fear of having a blind child to take care of that led him to this step. It was something else."

"What?" demanded the Judge. "Will you tell me what?"

"No," she said, "I cannot tell you what. But this much I am sure of—it was not that."

Judge Kirtley took off his glasses, polished them carefully, and put them on again. Then he looked over them into the face of his client.

"Well, Margaret, the ways of a woman and the working of a woman's mind are truly past finding out. You defend Richard De Jarnette!"

"I don't defend him," she cried hotly, "except against injustice. Anybody is entitled to fair play,—especially the absent. You have always urged me to look at both sides."

"Yes," he remarked dryly, "but heretofore you have never been able to do it."

She could not have told why she did it now. She protested to herself that it was only in common justice that she had spoken. But the truth is that love is the great discerner. It had cleared her vision and quickened her understanding. Unacknowledged, feared and fought against as the feeling was in the desperate spirit which recognized this as a death struggle, it was yet forcing her to see with its eyes. Henceforth, her judgments of this man would be, whether she would or not, truer, juster, more righteous judgments; her comprehension of motive where he was concerned, more subtly discriminating. It is the law of love.

It was the afternoon of the third day before he came. Three nights with their deadening, suffocating pall of darkness had fallen upon her,—darkness and the whip-poor-wills that drove her wild. She had made up her mind that he was gone as Victor had. Then as suddenly as he had departed he appeared before her one afternoon out in the grape arbor, whither in her restlessness she had gone. She and Philip both loved the place and often walked there when she came to see him, running races sometimes up and down its dim aisles through which the sun flickered intermittently now that the wistaria was out. Richard De Jarnette coming home unexpectedly one day just before Philip was taken sick heard shrieks of childish laughter there and forgetting that it was Margaret's day at Elmhurst, went down to find out what made his nephew so uproariously gay. What he saw was the woman who to him had always been cold and stately chasing the child, shrieking with delight, up and down and in and around the arbor, catching him at last and smothering him with kisses—taking toll—while Philip releasing himself and poising in ecstatic anticipation, cried coaxingly, "Do it again!"

They had not seen him and he slipped away, fairly shocked at what her face could be. It was a revelation to him of one side of her that he had never seen. Somehow it intoxicated him. But if he was intoxicated by a look he was sobered by a thought. Of what other simple natural joys had he deprived her and the child? Mammy Cely had told him once that the two had little dinners in the arbor, with a cloth on the table and little cakes and animal crackers that she had brought him. "Some days," she said "looks lak she is a plumb child with him. She does it so he won't furgit how to play."

He wondered uneasily afterwards if children really did forget how to play.

As he came down the leafy arch to-day in search of her, the recollection of that romp pierced him like a knife. A blind child would never play like that!

So soft were his footfalls on the thick grass that he was nearly upon her before she heard him. Then turning her head and seeing who it was, she started to rise.

"Don't get up," he said, taking the seat beside her, "I want to talk with you."

If the face that looked into his was unresponsive it was because she was trying so hard to still the tumultuous beating of her heart. It was shameful that it should throb so at sight of him! She would never let him know that she had had a thought of him in all these interminable days.

But when he spoke again, so gentle was his voice, so like her father's, that she had hard work to keep back the tears.

"Margaret, my child, did you think I had gone away and left you to bear it alone?"

The lump in her throat was like that she used to have in her youthful days. Why did he say "Margaret, my child," just as her father used to say? He might know she couldn't keep from crying then.

"I have been to New York."

She made no pretense of answering him. It seemed inexpressibly cruel to her that he should have taken this time to go to New York,—unfeeling that he should tell her of it in palliation of his neglect.

"I went to consult an oculist."

At the word oculist all thought of herself of him, was gone.

"An oculist! Oh, what did he say?"

"Nothing definite, of course, until he has seen him. He will be down in the morning."

"You had to go," she said, still unreconciled, "you could not send?"

"No. I went directly from here to Dr. Helsor, a fine oculist in Washington. I thought that perhaps I could get him out here before night. When I reached his office I found him quite sick and unable to leave the house, though he saw me. He was not able to take any cases, and he advised me to go personally to Dr. Abelthorpe of New York and if possible to bring him down here to examine Philip."

"Did you see him?" she asked eagerly.

"Yes, at last. But I had to wait two days to do it. He had been called out of the city and was not back until yesterday. I wrote you at once from New York—but I have just found the letter on my table with some other mail."

This was the explanation then. How simple it was. And his haste had been for Philip's sake!

"I should not have gone if there had been any other way, but Dr. Helsor thought that if I could see Dr. Abelthorpe personally, I would be more apt to secure his services. It was a fortunate thing I did, for I think no letter, however urgent, would have brought him. He is on the point of going to Europe. When I explained the circumstances, however" (and named the fee, he might have added), "he agreed to come. It was hard waiting, Margaret, knowing that you were alone—" she looked away from him, fearing that he might see the wretchedness of those days graven on her face—"but I am glad I did." He went on to tell her what the doctor had said. "He gave me great hope, though he says that such cases require care and patience."

"Oh, I will give him that! I will give up my life to him willingly, gladly, if only—Perhaps I would better go back with the doctor. Philip will be able to travel."

"You forget that he is just starting abroad. He goes in a very few days."

She looked up at him with a hopeless perplexity that wrung his heart.

"From what I have learned of Dr. Abelthorpe I am very anxious for him to have the care of Philip's case. I am aware—" he was speaking guardedly as one who does not feel sure of his ground—"that I have no right to dictate your movements in the matter, Margaret, as I have formally relinquished the control of Philip, but—I hope I have not overstepped the bounds—I have arranged with Dr. Abelthorpe (conditionally, of course), that if you are willing, and he still thinks it best after seeing Philip, that you will go abroad with him so that he can take charge of Philip at once as his attending physician."

"To go abroad?" she faltered.

"Yes. He thinks a sea voyage may do him good—says they rely a good deal upon constitutional treatment and—"

"But—I could not go alone," Margaret said, looking up at him hopelessly. Her heart was sinking unaccountably at the thought of drifting out into the great world with a sick child.

His mouth contracted suddenly. He looked away from her and his right hand out of sight gripped the bench on which they sat. He got up abruptly and walked to the entrance of the arbor. She thought he was listening to something. When he returned his features were as immobile as usual.

"No, you could not go alone. But Mrs. Pennybacker I am sure would go with you. And, of course, you would have Mammy Cely."

She found herself as wax in his hands. She could not plan for herself. If only the ocean were not so broad!

"There is one thing more, Margaret—a simple matter of business." It may have been a simple matter, but it seemed difficult for him to begin it.

"When Philip came to me last fall," he said, speaking gravely, but in a business-like tone, "I made a will by which everything I had was to go to him at my death. I have since taken steps to settle one half on him now in such a way that while I shall still have the care of it, the income will be immediately available for his use. No," answering the flush that swept over her pale face, "I have not forgotten what you said." She had told him once that she would rather Philip would starve than be dependant on him. "But you can't keep a man from doing what he wants to with his own. It is settled. Poor little chap. It is all the reparation I can make.

"As for you, Margaret," he went on, "I do not ask you to forgive me. I do not expect you to forgive. If there be an unpardonable sin I think I have committed it, for I have sinned against you, against womanhood, and against nature. When I think of you as I have seen you every minute of these three days, with what may be a blind child in your arms, I feel that the pitying mother of God could hardly forgive."

"You blame yourself unjustly for that," she said with quick generosity. "It might have happened if he had been with me."

"It would not have happened if he had been with you. You would have looked to his ways. You would not have been so immersed in business that you would have neglected a signal that meant danger to your child. But I—poor blind stubborn fool—"

"Let us not talk about it any more," she said gently. There was something in his remorse that touched her deeply. "It is done and it cannot be undone. I have never thought it was from any lack of love for Philip. You simply violated a law of nature—and nature's laws are the laws of God. He never intended men to have the care of little children." She would have been more than human if she had not said that much.

Once more he got up abruptly, walking to the further end of the arbor and back again. She thought she had angered him. When he spoke, it was standing, the green pathway between them, instead of at her side.

"You've beaten me, Margaret," he said, with a shake of the head. He was looking down at her with a half satirical smile on his lips. But it was of the lips only. There was no lightening of the gloom in the eyes bent upon her. "I wonder if you know how complete my rout has been."

She looked up quickly.

"You gave him to me voluntarily."

"Yes. I gave him to you voluntarily. And therein lies your victory. If the case had been brought to issue and decided against me there would have been excuse for my defeat. As it is, I have simply been beaten—by a woman. And the Almighty."

"It is hard to fight against the Almighty."

"Yes. And as hard, I find, to fight against a woman in the right. Perhaps the two mean the same thing. I rather think they do."

Then a tinge of bitterness came into his voice. "Of course the world—your world and mine—will have pleasant things to say about this latest chapter in the scandal of De Jarnette vs. De Jarnette. The natural inference, brutally stated, will be that I gave him up when I found that I might have a blind child on my hands. I couldn't expect them to say otherwise. The world judges by appearances and appearances are certainly against me. Well! I don't care much about what it thinks. The world and I have never been on very good terms. I have hated it and it has hated me ... I am more concerned about what—"

His eyes with their dumb pleading finished the sentence and she answered them.

"You know I do not think it," she said. "I have thought hard and bitter things about you—and with cause—but not that. I have never for one moment thought that."

He took a step across the arbor with outstretched hand, grasping the one she gave him as man grasps the hand of man. Then dropping it he went back to his place opposite her.

"You have a right to think hard things about me," he said. "I have been hard. I never intended to let my heart soften to you. I meant to hold out to the last. But,—"

She broke the silence that fell upon them then by saying:

"There is one thing I want to ask you before I go away and this may be our last talk together. Why—why have you been so bitterly cruel to me?"

He looked at her but did not answer.

"At first," she went on, "I thought it was from something hard in your nature,—or because you hated me,—or bore something up against me, I could not tell what. But since we have been together over Philip, and I have seen how gentle you are with him, it does not seem that you could ever have been wantonly cruel, nor that you—quite—hated me. What was the reason?"

"Miss Margaret! Oh, Miss Margaret!"

It was Mammy Cely's voice, and at this moment her rotund form appeared at the entrance to the arbor.

"Here's a letter fur you."

"Will you tell me some time?" she asked insistently as the woman came nearer. She might never have so good an opportunity again.

"Mr. Harcourt's waitin' fur you, Miss Margaret."

Richard De Jarnette's face hardened.

"There is nothing to tell," he said.

She took the letter and read it hastily.

"It is from Mrs. Pennybacker," she said, reading aloud with an awed look on her face,

"'Rosalie is worse. I think this is the end. She wants to see you and Mr. De Jarnette together and will not be denied. Come at once.'"