"You don't know?"
"Lois, will you give me some coffee?"
She poured out the cup with trembling hands, and sat while he took a swallow of the hot fluid, still scanning the newspaper. At last she said:
"Aren't you going to tell me any more?"
"There isn't any more to tell. There's no use talking about it. I believe I had some idea of selling the island when I went to Chicago, but I don't know how I got there. I didn't know I was there until I woke up two nights ago at a little hotel away out on the West Side. Billy pounded on the door, and said they told him I had been asleep for twenty-eight hours. I suppose I was dead tired out. I don't want to speak of it again, Lois; it wasn't a particularly pleasant thing to happen. Will you tell Mary to bring in the rest of the breakfast? I must catch the eight-thirty train back into town. I thought you might be bothered, so I came out first. Where are the children?"
"They are coming down now with Dosia," said his wife, helping Mary with the dishes. Redge ran up to his father, hitting him jubilantly with a small stick which he held in his chubby hand, and bringing irritated reproof down upon him at once; but Zaidee, her blue eyes open, her lips parted over her little white teeth, slid into the arm outstretched for her, and stood there leaning against "Daddy's" side, while he ate and drank hurriedly, with only one hand at his disposal. Poor Lois could not help one pang of jealousy at being shut out, but she heroically smothered it.
"Mr. Harker was here the evening before last; he brought me some money," she ventured at last.
"That was all right."
"And Mr. Girard was very kind; he stayed here all that night—until your message came."
"I hope you haven't been talking about this all over the place."