"Mother!" she whispered, at last, steadying herself against the wall. "Are you sure, Mother?"
"That he wants you? My child, his eyes fill with tears when he thinks of you. I have seen them moisten as he lies looking from the window."
But Kate was gone.
When Mrs. Fortune opened the door to the sick man's room soon afterward she drew back quickly, closed it again, and, lifting her eyes aloft, murmured:
"God make them happy!"
MR. HAMSHAW'S LOVE AFFAIR
Mr. Hamshaw was short, bald, pudgy—and fifty-seven. Besides all this, he was a bachelor, and one jolly one, at the time when this narrative opens. He lived in apartments pretty well downtown, where he was looked after with scrupulous care by a Japanese valet and an Irish "cook-lady." Mr. Hamshaw was forever discharging his valet and forever re-engaging him. Sago persistently refused to leave at the hour set for his departure, and Mr. Hamshaw finally came to discharge him every evening in order that he might be sure to find him at his post in the morning. Regularly, he would call Sago into the den, very red in the face over some wholly imaginary provocation.
"This ends it, Sago! You go! I've stood it as long as I can—or will. You leave the place tonight, sir—bag and baggage. I don't want to see your face again. Understand?"