"Ah, you may well say poor!" he answered bitterly.

"If it were not for you, the boys, poor Nellie, and her babies, I'd just be thankful to know that I'd never get up from this bed again, for I don't feel that I have courage to face life now." "Father, you must not talk nor think like that, indeed you must not!" she exclaimed, in an imploring tone.

"Think how we need you and how we love you.

Think, too, how desolate we should be without you." "That is what I tell myself every hour in the twenty-four, and I shall make as brave a fight for it as I can for your sakes," he said in a regretful tone, as if his family cares were holding him to life against his will.

Then he went on: "Oswald Selincourt and I were in the same business house in Bristol years ago, and I did him a great wrong." Katherine had a sensation that was almost akin to what she would have felt if someone had dashed a bucket of ice-cold water in her face.