“She must be made to ask you!”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“No, I guess you don’t—nor anybody else. She’s too proud and too angry to ask me—after what she said years ago it would mean if she did ask me. But when I think of that child, doomed to lifelong misery, and when I think that maybe in my hands lies a chance of escape, but for that confounded nonsense we call pride and professional etiquette, I—” He did not finish his sentence, but with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, he turned and began to tramp up and down the room again, angrily.

“But if she could be made to see—to understand,” urged John Pendleton.

“Yes; and who’s going to do it?” demanded the doctor, with a savage turn.

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” groaned the other, miserably.

Outside the window Jimmy Bean stirred suddenly. Up to now he had scarcely breathed, so intently had he listened to every word.

“Well, by Jinks, I know!” he whispered, exultingly. “I’m a-goin’ ter do it!” And forthwith he rose to his feet, crept stealthily around the corner of the house, and ran with all his might down Pendleton Hill.