“I am not a pessimist,” he answered, after a moment.  “It has been one of my few Commandments always to look for the bright spot, if there is one.  But, down there, I have seen so many wolves, human wolves.  It seems strange to me that so many people should have the same mad desire for the dollar that the wolves of the forest have for warm, red, quivering flesh.  I have known a wolf-pack to kill five times what it could eat in a night, and kill again the next night, and still the next—­always more than enough.  They are like the Dollar Hunters—­only beasts.  Among such, one cannot have solid friends—­not very many who will not sell you for a price.  I was afraid to trust Josephine down among them.  I am glad that it was you she met, Philip.  You were of the North—­a foster-child, if not born there.”

That day was one of gloom in Adare House.  The baby’s fever grew steadily worse, until in Josephine’s eyes Philip read the terrible fear.  He remained mostly with Adare in the big room.  The lamps were lighted, and Adare had just risen from his chair, when Miriam came through the door.  She was swaying, her hands reaching out gropingly, her face the gray of ash that crumbles from an ember.  Adare sprung to meet her, a strange cry on his lips, and Philip was a step behind her.  He heard her moaning words, and as he rushed past them into the hall he knew that she had fallen fainting into her husband’s arms.

In the doorway to Josephine’s room he paused.  She was there, kneeling beside the little cradle, and her face as she lifted it to him was tearless, but filled with a grief that went to the quick of his soul.  He did not need to look into the cradle as she rose unsteadily, clutching a hand at her heart, as if to keep it from breaking.  He knew what he would see.  And now he went to her and drew her close in his strong arms, whispering the pent-up passion of the things that were in his heart, until at last her arms stole up about his neck, and she sobbed on his breast like a child.  How long he held her there, whispering over and over again the words that made her grief his own, he could not have told; but after a time he knew that some one else had entered the room, and he raised his eyes to meet those of John Adare.  The face of the great, grizzled giant had aged five years.  But his head was erect.  He looked at Philip squarely.  He put out his two hands, and one rested on Josephine’s head, the other on Philip’s shoulder.

“My children,” he said gently, and in those two words were weighted the strength and consolation of the world.

He pointed to the door, motioning Philip to take Josephine away, and then he went and stood at the crib-side, his great shoulders hunched over, his head bowed down.

Tenderly Philip led Josephine from the room.  Adare had taken his wife to her room, and when they entered she was sitting in a chair, staring and speechless.  And now Josephine turned to Philip, taking his face between her two hands, and her soul looking at him through a blinding mist of tears.