children by an earlier marriage--ever saw. It was a special thing for
this sister who had been a stately young lady of twenty when he was a bad
little boy of ten. She had watched him, admiring yet rather aghast, ever
since then.

To the world at large his social charm lay in--or was at least
inseparable from--his really exquisite manners, his considerateness, the
touch of old-fashioned punctilio there was about him. His first wife
would have agreed with her successor about his possession of this quality
though they would have appraised it rather differently. Only this elderly
unmarried sister of his felt the fascination of the horrible about him.

This was to some extent inherent in his profession. He had a reputation
that was growing to amount to fame as a specialist in the very wide
field of gynecology, obstetrics and abdominal surgery. The words
themselves made Miss Wollaston shudder.

When he replied to her question, whether or not he had had any sleep at
all, with an open grin and that triumphant "Not a wink," she had a
prophetic sense of what was going to happen. She was going to ask him
more questions and he was going to tell her something perfectly ghastly.

She felt herself slipping, but she pulled up. "What's in Mary's letter?"
she asked.

She knew that this was not quite fair, and the look that it brought to
his face--a twinge of pain like neuralgia--awakened a sharp compunction
in her. She did not know why--at least not exactly why--his relation with
his daughter should be a sore spot in his emotional life, but she knew
quite well that this was true. There was on the surface, nothing, or