Von Horn looked at him, a tinge of compassion in his
rather hard face. It touched the man that his employer
was at last shocked from the obsession of his work to a
realization of the love and duty he owed his daughter;
he thought that the professor's last words referred to
Virginia.

"Though there are twelve more," continued Professor
Maxon, "you were my first born son and I loved you
most, dear child."

The younger man was horrified.

"My God, Professor!" he cried. "Are you mad? Can you
call this thing `child' and mourn over it when you do
not yet know the fate of your own daughter?"

Professor Maxon looked up sadly. "You do not
understand, Dr. von Horn," he replied coldly, "and you
will oblige me, in the future, by not again referring
to the offspring of my labors as `things.'"

With an ugly look upon his face von Horn turned his
back upon the older man--what little feeling of loyalty
and affection he had ever felt for him gone forever.
Sing was looking about for evidences of the cause of
Number One's death and the probable direction in which
Virginia Maxon had disappeared.

"What on earth could have killed this enormous brute, Sing?