It was weeks before Margaret emerged from the shadow of death that fell upon her that day in the court-room. When she did she looked like one of the shades. The fever had wrought sad ravages.

"It's too bad!" whispered Maria Van Dorn to Bess the first time she saw her. "A woman has lost all when she's lost her beauty." And she glanced with a degree of satisfaction at her own fair reflection. The contrast was striking. Maria had never been in better flesh or color.

"I hadn't thought of that," said Bess. "I'm so glad to see her alive."

But if Margaret's cheeks were hollow and the rose tint gone, the light that shone above them was undimmed. From their deep setting her great eyes glowed like smouldering coals.

They kept her at the hospital as long as they could, delaying the home-coming upon every possible pretext. When at last she came the house was swept and garnished but very empty.

She went from room to room. They had removed every trace of a child's presence as people do when the dead are laid away.

"I want every thing put back in its place," she said,—"his bed, his chair, his playthings. They must be ready for him when he comes." Then, as Mrs. Pennybacker looked up with quick apprehension, she said with a smile, "No, it is not fever; it is faith. I thought it all out while I was at the hospital. God will never let me lose my child."

When Judge Kirtley came she talked it over with a calm cheerfulness that amazed him,—listening to his report of what had been done and putting in now and then a question which showed her mind to be clear and alert. While she was helpless Judge Kirtley had not been idle. His next move, he told her, would be to attack the validity of the law upon which the will rested. Since the will itself had been sustained by the Probate Court, and that decision had been practically reaffirmed by the court which had just awarded the custody of the child to the guardian, and they had no new evidence to offer, this seemed to him their best show. In all his practice he had never known a case of this kind before, and he proposed now to test the law. He had associated with himself a firm of successful attorneys in middle life who were working upon the case with much interest.

"We may not see the end of this for a long time, my child, but when we do I expect to have a decision in your favor."

"It will be."

She said it with such implicit confidence that he felt impelled to say, remembering her former hopefulness and its disastrous overthrow, "Still, it is always wise to look the possibility of defeat in the face."

"No," she said, "I will not look the possibility of defeat in the face. Some day I will get him." It seemed almost as if her faith were inspired.

The court had provided that she should see the child at stated intervals, he told her. Philip was now at Mr. De Jarnette's country home, and was, he was informed, well and happy.

Her lips tightened. "I will go to him to-day," she said.

"Margaret, if this thing could be settled out of court it would save you a great deal of anxiety and tedious waiting. It is just possible that having been successful, Mr. De Jarnette might be in a compromising frame of mind. Sometimes it works that way. Could you make up your mind to see him yourself?"

"I can make up my mind to do anything that is necessary," she said.

It seemed to the old Judge that no heart of flesh and blood could withstand her as she looked that day.

Sitting by the window of his office the next afternoon Mr. De Jarnette saw his sister-in-law's carriage drive slowly down the street and stop before the Conococheague building. Mr. Harcourt was beside her. He was much at the Massachusetts Avenue house these days, and Mrs. Pennybacker encouraged it. "Your nonsense will do her good just now," she told him. "She needs a breeze from the outside world that will freshen the air without blowing directly upon her." After this he fell into the habit of dropping in at odd times—after office hours, and occasionally for Sunday night supper. Mr. De Jarnette had noticed on the day of the trial when Margaret lay in a faint that he came directly to her as though his place were at her side. Looking at them now as they sat there together and thinking of all that had occurred in this room he felt somehow bereft anew.

After his brother's death he had given up his own room across the hall and moved into the one Victor had occupied. Dr. Semple had urged him to give up the suite and go somewhere else, but with an obstinacy which was a part of the man he refused.

On the floor was still the dark spot made by Victor De Jarnette's life blood. His brother would never even have the carpet changed. Only the luxurious furnishings of the room had given place to the plain office furniture of the room across the hall.

It was here that he received Margaret. If he had planned her coming he would have received her here.

It was the first time she had been in the room since the day her husband lay dead on the floor. Instinctively her eyes sought the place, and Richard De Jarnette watching her closely, saw a shudder pass through her. The same expression of horror that convulsed her features that day came over them again. It was but momentary, however. She had come here for a purpose and she was not to be deterred. She threw her soul into that plea.

"You come to me here," he said at length, in a tone that promised little—"in this room—to urge the setting aside of my dead brother's will?"

"Why should I not? You know he had no right to make such a will—no moral right."

"He had a legal right," he said, cruelly. "On that I stand." Then looking at her fixedly and speaking with slow emphasis as if weighing every word and giving her time to do the same: "Had he been permitted to live out his life he might, himself, have changed the provisions of that will—have rescinded that which you feel to be cruel and unnatural—that which I do not say was not cruel and unnatural. But—" his eyes sought the brown spot on the floor, and hers followed them,—"before he could do this his life was cut off—"

"By his own hand," she protested.

"—and the possibility of undoing what he had done was wrested from him. Well! Let it stand."

She looked at him as if she were trying to fathom his meaning. But his face was inscrutable. Then she rose.

"I have made my last appeal to you," she said. "It is useless to humiliate myself further. I came here hoping against hope that having vindicated before the world your legal right to the guardianship and custody of my child, you might then be so just, so generous, as to give him back into the keeping of his natural guardian. But I have overrated you."

He surprised her by a reply to this.

"Did it ever occur to you," he asked quietly, "that you might have underrated me?"

"No. Never."

"Suppose for one moment—for purposes of argument only—that I am not the black-hearted thing you think me—that I would not drag shrieking children from their mother's breasts for the mere pleasure of the thing—can you then conceive no reason why I should feel that I and not you—you—" he was looking searchingly at her now, his eyes narrowing and concentrating their gleam upon her face—"should have the keeping of my dead brother's child?"

She shook her head slowly, wonderingly.

"I can conceive no reason, no possible reason. Oh, I have made mistakes, if that is what you mean. But they were the mistakes of a brute mother robbed. A tigress when she sees a cobra hanging near does not wait to have the Jungle's Lord High Magistrate pass upon the case! She springs and falls upon it, or—despairing of that—snatches up her cub and flees with it to a place of safety. I did that—no more! I was a woman—I could not strike—and so I caught up my child and fled. The Judge says I broke the law,—" she threw back her head with the old imperious gesture—"I say I kept it—Nature's law, implanted by a greater than judge or jury. But, humanly speaking, it was a mistake—I grant you that. I should have stayed and trusted to the chance that a stone might melt, have knelt, a suppliant at your feet, saying, 'Oh, sir, I recognize your right! The law, of course, is just! But—give a poor girl back her baby!'"

Richard De Jarnette sat motionless before her, not taking his eyes from her face, not indicating in any way that he felt her thrusts. If this was acting it was good of its kind.

Dropping her tone of bitter satire she went on.

"Yes, a mistake—but one that I shall not make again. I was then scarcely more than child myself. A child fighting against a strong man and the law.... But let it pass. Now I am a woman, full-grown and old, old! A few years like these would crowd eternity." She stopped a moment and then went on. She was not through yet.

"Richard De Jarnette, you have might on your side,—the will—a wicked, wicked one; a law—so infamous that its very wording reeks to high heaven; and the decision of the court. Against all these I put my woman's patience and the right—and I defy you! I shall win! This time I shall be patient,—oh, so patient,—and tireless as the insects on a coral reef. It will be long,—perhaps I may be gray-headed when it comes—but some day—" again she threw her head back, not raising her voice above its former low pitch, but speaking with incisive utterance that cut the air—"some day I shall have my child. For it is right. And in the end right wins."

She made a movement to pass out, but he stopped her by a gesture.

"One moment, please. There is something concerning Philip about which I would like to speak to you. Will you not be seated?"

"Thank you, I will stand."

He raised his brows slightly and went on.

"While I have declined, and shall decline, to relinquish my right to the custody of my dead brother's child—" Margaret's eyes flashed—he always spoke of the child in this way—never as hers—"and I think you know why—I do not wish to make it harder for you than is necessary. The court has granted you the privilege of seeing him at stated times. For reasons that it is not necessary at this time to give, I prefer that those meetings should be at my home rather than at yours. The boy will be kept for the present at Elmhurst under the care of his old nurse whom you know and trust."

Margaret bowed assent.

"I will say to you frankly that I do not consider it for the child's best good that your visits should be more frequent than provided by the court—"

"In other words, you want him to forget me," she broke in bitterly.

He did not answer the outburst.

"—but the trains run past Elmhurst at such hours that it would be difficult to make the trip in a morning or afternoon. At any time that it suits your convenience to be there at luncheon, I trust you will feel at liberty to do so."

She looked at him in amazement. Then she said proudly, "Pardon me. I could hardly bring myself to do that, Mr. De Jarnette."

He bowed gravely.

"As you will. Another thing: the station is some distance from the house. If you will let them know when to expect you, the carriage will always be there to meet you."

There seemed the strangest incongruity in this iron man's arranging for her comfort and convenience, while persistently doing the one thing that broke her heart. She felt suddenly ashamed of her ungraciousness.

"Thank you," she said "for your courtesy. I—I beg that you will pardon my rudeness. True, the right to be always with my child is already mine—I do not relinquish one jot or tittle of that claim—but I realize that you have done more than the law required of you. For this I thank you. But it must be distinctly understood that I am not to be bought off by it. Nor will my efforts to recover my child be relaxed. The fight is on between us, and I warn you that I shall never give it up."

"Never is a long time," he said as he opened the door for her and bowed her out.

"A long time," she repeated, "except for God and mothers."

When Richard De Jarnette went back into his office he sat down with his long legs stretched out before him and his eyes staring at the brown spot on the carpet. For a long, long time he did not stir. At last he roused himself. "I would give ten years of my life," he said, "ten years—to know."