“Then he must die,” said McLean.

His broad shoulders shook convulsively.  His strong hands opened and closed mechanically.

“Does that mean that you know what he desires and cannot, or will not, supply it?”

McLean groaned in misery.

“It means,” he said desperately, “that I know what he wants, but it is as far removed from my power to help him as it would be to give him a star.  The thing for which he will die, he can never have.”

“Then you must prepare for the end very shortly” said the surgeon, turning abruptly away.

McLean caught his arm roughly.

“You look here!” he cried in desperation.  “You say that as if I could do something if I would.  I tell you the boy is dear to me past expression.  I would do anything—­spend any sum.  You have noticed and repeatedly commented on the young girl with me.  It is that child that he wants!  He worships her to adoration, and knowing he can never be anything to her, he prefers death to life.  In God’s name, what can I do about it?”

“Barring that missing hand, I never examined a finer man,” said the surgeon, “and she seemed perfectly devoted to him; why cannot he have her?”

“Why?” echoed McLean.  “Why?  Well, for many reasons!  I told you he was my son.  You probably knew that he was not.  A little over a year ago I never had seen him.  He joined one of my lumber gangs from the road.  He is a stray, left at one of your homes for the friendless here in Chicago.  When he grew up the superintendent bound him to a brutal man.  He ran away and landed in one of my lumber camps.  He has no name or knowledge of legal birth.  The Angel—­we have talked of her.  You see what she is, physically and mentally.  She has ancestors reaching back to Plymouth Rock, and across the sea for generations before that.  She is an idolized, petted only child, and there is great wealth.  Life holds everything for her, nothing for him.  He sees it more plainly than anyone else could.  There is nothing for the boy but death, if it is the Angel that is required to save him.”

The Angel stood between them.

“Well, I just guess not!” she cried.  “If Freckles wants me, all he has to do is to say so, and he can have me!”

The amazed men stepped back, staring at her.

“That he will never say,” said McLean at last, “and you don’t understand, Angel.  I don’t know how you came here.  I wouldn’t have had you hear that for the world, but since you have, dear girl, you must be told that it isn’t your friendship or your kindness Freckles wants; it is your love.”

The Angel looked straight into the great surgeon’s eyes with her clear, steady orbs of blue, and then into McLean’s with unwavering frankness.

“Well, I do love him,” she said simply.

McLean’s arms dropped helplessly.