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          [Illustration: "THAT OF A HAND HOLDING A BOTTLE"]


                            ONE OF MY SONS



                                  BY

                         ANNA KATHARINE GREEN

                        (MRS. CHARLES ROHLFS)

      AUTHOR OF "THE LEAVENWORTH CASE," "HAND AND RING,"
      "MARKED 'PERSONAL,'" "THAT AFFAIR NEXT DOOR," ETC.




                            [Illustration]




                         G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

                         NEW YORK AND LONDON

                       THE KNICKERBOCKER PRESS

                                 1901



                           COPYRIGHT, 1901

                                  BY

                        ANNA KATHARINE ROHLFS

       *       *       *       *       *




CONTENTS


BOOK I

THE SHADOW


                                                     PAGE

I.--THE CHILD, AND WHAT SHE LED ME INTO                1

II.--THE YOUNG DOCTOR AND THE OLD                      6

III.--WHAT A DOOR HID                                 21

IV.--"HE DRANK IT ALONE"                              32

V.--HOPE                                              38

VI.--A HAPPY INSPIRATION                              50

VII.--THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN BY THE NEWEL-POST         54

VIII.--THE MAN BEHIND THE SCREEN                      71

IX.--THE CLOCK THAT HAD RUN DOWN                      88

X.--THE PENCIL                                        96

XI.--SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT                        101

XII.--GOSSIP                                         104

XIII.--INDICATIONS                                   110

XIV.--A SUDDEN TURN                                  127

XV.--THE MISSING POCKET                              139

XVI.--IN THE PARLOUR AT MRS. PENRHYN'S               147


BOOK II

THE MAN


                                                    PAGE

XVII.--THE MONOGRAM                                  157

XVIII.--THE PHIAL                                    176

XIX.--I MAKE MY FIRST MOVE                           187

XX.--THE LITTLE HOUSE IN NEW JERSEY                  192

XXI.--MILLE-FLEURS                                   201

XXII.--A DISAGREEABLE HOUR WITH A DISAGREEABLE MAN   212

XXIII.--IN MY OFFICE                                 224

XXIV.--AN OLD CATASTROPHE IS RECALLED                239

XXV.--A SUMMONS                                      255

XXVI.--FERRY LIGHTS                                  262

XXVII.--RAIN                                         272

XXVIII.--BY THE LIGHT OF A GUTTERING CANDLE          282

XXIX.--THE QUIET HOUR                                313

XXX.--AN UNEXPECTED ALLY                             320

XXXI.--SWEETWATER HAS AN IDEA                        327

XXXII.--WITH THE SHADE DOWN                          336

XXXIII.--IN WHICH WE CAN PARDON MR. GRYCE HIS
            UNFORTUNATE ILLNESS                      344

XXXIV.--"IT WAS THE SHOCK!"                          352

XXXV.--ROSES                                         363

       *       *       *       *       *




ILLUSTRATIONS

                                                            PAGE

"_That of a hand holding a bottle_"                    Frontispiece

"_One hand was pressed against his heart_"                     4

"_Crouched against the farther wall, with
wide-extended eyes fixed full upon
us_"                                                          30

"_I saw her wild figure jump out and
plunge away in the direction of the
river_"                                                      186

"_In two minutes I was under that open
window_"                                                     276

"_She glided into our presence in one rapturous
whirl_"                                                      296

       *       *       *       *       *




ONE OF MY SONS


BOOK I

THE SHADOW

I

THE CHILD, AND WHAT SHE LED ME INTO


I was walking at a rapid pace up the avenue one raw, fall evening,
when somewhere near the corner of Fifty----Street I was brought to a
sudden stand-still by the sound of a child's voice accosting me from
the stoop of one of the handsome houses I was then passing.

"O sir!" it cried, "please come in. Please come to grandpa. He's sick
and wants you."

Surprised, for I knew no one on the block, I glanced up and saw
bending from the open doorway the trembling figure of a little girl,
with a wealth of curly hair blowing about her sweet, excited face.

"You have made a mistake," I called up to her. "I am not the person
you suppose. I am a stranger. Tell me whom you know about here and I
will see that someone comes to your grandpa."

But this did not satisfy her. Running down the stoop, she seized me by
the arm with childish impetuosity, crying: "No, no. There isn't time.
Grandpa told me to bring in the first man I saw going by. You are the
first man. Come!"

There was urgency in her tones, and unconsciously I began to yield to
her insistence, and allow myself to be drawn towards the stoop.

"Who is your grandpa?" I asked, satisfied from the imposing look of
the house that he must be a man of some prominence. "If he is sick
there are the servants"--But here her little foot came down in
infantile impatience.

"Grandpa never waits!" she cried, dragging me with her small hands up
the stoop and into the open door. "If you don't hurry he'll think I
didn't do as he told me."

What man would not have yielded? The hall, as seen from the entrance,
was wide and unusually rich. Indeed, an air of the highest
respectability, as well as of unbounded wealth, characterised the
whole establishment; and however odd the adventure appeared, it
certainly offered nothing calculated to awaken distrust. Entering with
her, I shut the door behind me. In an instant she was half-way down
the hall.

"Here! here!" she cried, pausing before a door near its end.

The confidence with which she summoned me (I sometimes wonder if my
countenance conveys more than the ordinary amount of good nature) and
the pretty picture she made, standing in the flood of light which
poured from the unseen apartment toward which she beckoned me, lured
me on till I reached her side, and stood in full view of a scene which
certainly justified her fear if not the demand she made upon a passing
stranger.

In the midst of a small room, plain as any office, I saw an elderly
gentleman standing who, even to my unaccustomed eyes, seemed to be not
simply ill, but in the throes of actual dissolution.

Greatly disturbed, for I had anticipated nothing so serious, I turned
to fly for assistance, when the little child, rushing by me, caught
her grandfather by the knees and gave me such a look, I had not the
heart to leave her.

Indeed it would have been cruel to do so. The appearance and attitude
of the sick man were startling even to me. Though in a state bordering
on death, he was, as I have said, standing, not lying, and his tall
figure swaying against the large table to which he clung, formed a
picture of mental and physical suffering such as I had never before
seen, and can never in all my life to come, forget. One hand was
pressed against his heart, but the other, outspread in a desperate
attempt to support his weight, had fallen on some half-dozen sheets or
so of typewritten paper, which, slipping under the pressure put upon
them, kept him tottering, though he did not fall. He was looking my
way, and as I advanced into the room, his collapsing frame shook with
sudden feeling, and the hand which he held clenched over his heart
opened slightly, revealing a scrap of paper crushed between his
fingers.

Struck with compassion, for the contrast was pitiful between his
naturally imposing appearance and his present helplessness, I murmured
some words of sympathy and encouragement, and then supposing him to be
alone in the house with his grandchild, inquired what I could do to
serve him.

He cast a meaning glance down at his hand, then seeing that I did not
understand him, made a super-human effort and held that member out,
uttering some inarticulate words which I was able to construe into a
prayer to take from him the paper which his stiffening clutch made it
difficult for him to release.

Touched by his extremity, and anxious to afford him all the solace his
desperate case demanded, I drew the paper from between his fingers. As
I did so I noted, first, that it was a portion of one of the sheets I
saw scattered about on every side, and, secondly, that it was folded
together as if intended for someone's private perusal.

"What shall I do with this?" I asked, consulting his eye over which a
glaze was fast forming.

He let his own glance wander eagerly till it fell upon some envelopes,
then it became fixed, and I understood.

Drawing out one, I placed the slip in it, and fastening the envelope,
consulted his face with a smile.

He answered with