"Mr. Lockwin, I'm not rich, but I'd give a thousand dollars--a thousand
dollars!"

"My God, doctor! why have you been so slow getting here?"

"My horses have been taken sick as fast as I got them."

The doctor advances to the child. The child is smiling on Richard
Tarbelle.

"What ails you?"

It is Lockwin, looking in scorn on his doctor, who now, pale as a
ghost, throws his hands up and down silly as the crone downstairs by
the kitchen-range.

"Nothing can be done! Nothing can be done!"

"They say it hasn't been asthma at all," sobs Esther. "I suppose it's
diphtheria."

"The man who can't tell when a child is sick, can't tell when he's
dying," sneers Lockwin. "Doctor, when were you here yesterday?"

"I haven't been here since to-morrow week. My horses have been sick
and the child was well."

Davy is white as marble. His breath comes hard. But why he should be
dying, and why this fifty-cent doctor should know that much, puzzles
and dumfounds the father. Davy may die next week, perhaps. Not dying