to go through that again? Was I to love and care for and worship this
child, and have her grow up with all her mother's vanity and animal
nature, and have her turn on me some day and show me that what is bred
in the bone must tell, and that I was a fool again--a pitiful fond
fool? I could not trust her. I can never trust any woman or child
again, and least of all that woman's child. She is as dead to me as
though she were buried with her mother, and it is nothing to me what
she is or what her life is. I know in time what it will be. She has
begun earlier than I had supposed, that is all; but she is nothing to
me." The man stopped and turned his back to Van Bibber, and hid his
head in his hands, with his elbows on the mantel-piece. "I care too
much," he said. "I cannot let it mean anything to me; when I do care,
it means so much more to me than to other men. They may pretend to
laugh and to forget and to outgrow it, but it is not so with me. It
means too much." He took a quick stride towards one of the arm-chairs,
and threw himself into it. "Why, man," he cried, "I loved that child's
mother to the day of her death. I loved that woman then, and, God help
me! I love that woman still."

He covered his face with his hands, and sat leaning forward and
breathing heavily as he rocked himself to and fro. Van Bibber still
stood looking gravely out at the lights that picketed the black
surface of the city. He was to all appearances as unmoved by the
outburst of feeling into which the older man had been surprised as
though it had been something in a play. There was an unbroken silence
for a moment, and then it was Van Bibber who was the first to speak.

"I came here, as you say, on impulse," he said; "but I am glad I came,
for I have your decisive answer now about the little girl. I have
been thinking," he continued, slowly, "since you have been speaking,