The stiff-backed
chairs had given place to comfortable monsters of easy lines. Vance
Cornish, as one in a dream, peered here and there.
"God bless us!" he kept repeating. "God bless us! But where's there a
trace of Father?"
"I left it out," said Elizabeth huskily, "because this room is meant
for--but let's go back. Do you remember that day twenty-four years ago
when we took Jack Hollis's baby?"
"When _you_ took it," he corrected. "I disclaim all share in the idea."
"Thank you," she answered proudly. "At any rate, I took the boy and
called him Terence Colby."
"Why that name," muttered Vance, "I never could understand."
"Haven't I told you? No, and I hardly know whether to trust even you with
the secret, Vance. But you remember we argued about it, and you said that
blood would out; that the boy would turn out wrong; that before he was
twenty-five he would have shot a man?"
"I believe the talk ran like that."
"Well, Vance, I started out with a theory; but the moment I had that baby
in my arms, it became a matter of theory, plus, and chiefly plus. I kept
remembering what you had said, and I was afraid.
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