While the doughty town marshal, endowed now with a courage long foreign to his nature, was leading away his sobbing prisoner, followed by the prisoner's dazed yet angered parent, these other two, mother and son, continued rapidly on their way toward the home of Aurora Lane. The young man walked in silence, his enthusiasm stilled, although he held his mother's hand tight and close as it lay upon his arm. His face, frowning and stern, seemed suddenly grown strangely older.

They arrived at the corner of the tawny grassplot of the courthouse yard, crossed the street once more, and turned in at the long shady lane of maples which made off from that corner of the square. Here, just in the neutral strip between business and residence property, opposite a wagon-making and blacksmith shop, and adjoining the humble abode of a day-laborer, they came to a little gate which swung upon a decrepit hinge. It made in upon a strip of narrow brick walk, swept scrupulously clean, lined with well-kept tulips; a walk which in turn arrived at the foot of a short and narrow stair leading up to the porch of the green-shuttered house itself.

It was a small place of some half-dozen rooms, and it served now, as it had for these twenty years, as home and workshop alike for its tenant. Aurora Lane had lived here so long that most folk thought she owned the place. As a matter of fact, she owned only a vast sheaf of receipted bills for rent paid to Nels Jorgens, the wagon-maker across the street. In all these twenty years her rent had been paid promptly, as were all her other bills.

Aurora Lane was a milliner, who sometimes did dress-making as well—the only milliner in Spring Valley—and had held that honor for many years. A tiny sign above the door announced her calling. A certain hat, red of brim and pronounced of plume, which for unknown years had reposed in the front window of the place—the sort of hat which proved bread-winning among farmers' wives and in the families of villagers of moderate income—likewise announced that here one might find millinery.

When she first had moved into these quarters so many years ago, scarce more than a young girl, endeavoring to make a living in the world, the maples had not been quite so wide, the grass along the sidewalk not quite so dusty.

It was here that for twenty years Aurora Lane had made her fight against the world. It had been the dream, the fierce, flaming ambition of all her life, that her son, her son beloved, her son born out of holy wedlock, might after all have some chance in life.

It was for this that she aided in his disappearance in his infancy, studiously giving out to all—without doubt even to the unknown father of the boy—the word that the child had died, still in its infancy, in a distant state, among relatives of her own. She herself, caught in the shallows of poverty and unable to travel, had not seen him in all these years—had not dared to see him—had in all the dulled but not dead agony of a mother's yearning postponed her sweet dream of a mother's love, and with unmeasurable bravery held her secret all these awful years. Schooling here and there, at length the long term in college, had kept the boy altogether a stranger to his native town, a stranger even to his own mother. He did not know his own past, nor hers. He did not dream how life had been made smooth for him, nor at what fearful cost. Shielded about always by a mother's love, he had not known he had a mother.

This was as his mother had wished. As for him, in some way he received the requisite funds. He wondered only that he knew so little of his own people, half orphan though he was. He had been told that his father, long since dead, had left a certain sum for the purpose of his education, although further of his own history he knew nothing. That he was not of honorable birth he never once had dreamed. And now he had heard this charge for the first time—heard it made publicly, openly, before all the world, on this which was to have been the happiest day in all his life.

But if Don Lane knew little about himself, there lacked not knowledge of his story, actual or potential, here in Spring Valley, once his presence called up the past to Spring Valley's languid mind. There had not yet been excitement enough for one day. Everyone, male and female, surging here and there in swift gossiping, now called up the bitter story so long hid in Aurora Lane's bosom.

As for Aurora, she had before this well won her fight of all these years. She was known as the town milliner, a woman honorable in her business transactions and prompt with all her bills. Socially she had no place. She was not invited to any home, any table. The best people of the town, the banker's wife, the families of the leading merchants, bought bonnets of her. Ministers—while yet new in their pulpits—had been known to call upon her sometimes—one had even offered to kneel and pray with her in her workroom, promising her salvation even yet, and telling her the story of the thief upon the cross. Once Aurora Lane went to church and sat far back, unseen, but she did so no longer now, had not for many years, feeling that she dared not appear in the church—the church which had not ratified her nuptial night!

She had her place, definite and yet indefinite, accepted and yet rejected, here in this village. But gradually, dumbly, doggedly she had fought on; and she had won. Long since, Spring Valley had ceased openly to call up her story. If once she had been wearer of the scarlet letter, the color thereof had faded these years back. She was the town milliner, a young woman under suspicion always, but no man could bring true word against her character. She had sinned—once—no more. If she had known opportunity for other sins than her first one, she held her peace. Human nature were here as it is elsewhere—women as keen; men as lewd. But the triumph of Aurora Lane might now have been called complete. She had "lived it down."

This long and terrible battle of one woman against so many strangely enough had not wholly embittered her life, so strong and sweet and true and normal had it originally been. She still could smile—smile in two fashions. One was a pleasant, sunny and open smile for those who came in the surface affairs of life. The other was deeper, a slow, wry smile, very wise, and yet perhaps charitable, after all. Aurora Lane knew!

But all these years she had worked on with but one purpose—to bring up her boy and to keep her boy in ignorance of his birth. He had never known—not in all these years! It had been her dream, her prayer, that he might never know.

And now he knew—he must know.

They stepped through the little picket gate, up the tiny brick walk and across the little narrow porch together, into the tiny apartments which had been the arena for Aurora Lane—in which she had fought for her own life, her own soul, and for the life of her son, her tribute to the scheme of life itself. Here lay the penetralia of this domicile, this weak fortification against the world.

In this room were odds and ends of furniture, a few pictures not ill-chosen—pictures not in crude colors, but good blacks and whites. Woman or girl, Aurora Lane had had her own longings for the great things, the beautiful things of life, for the wide world which she never was to see. Her taste for good things was instinctive, perhaps hereditary. Had she herself not been an orphan, perhaps she had not dared the attempt to orphan her own son. There were books and magazines upon the table, mixed in with odds and ends of scraps of work sometimes brought hither; the margin between her personal and her professional life being a very vague matter.

Back of this central room, through the open door, showed the small white bed in the tiny sleeping room. At the side of this was the yet more tiny kitchen where Aurora Lane all these years had cooked for herself and washed for herself and drawn wood and water for herself. She had no servant, or at least usually had not. Daily she wrought a woman's miracles in economy. Year by year she had, in some inscrutable fashion, been able to keep up appearances, and to pay her bills, and to send money to her son—her son whom she had not seen in twenty years—her son for whom her eyes and her heart ached every hour of every day. She sewed. She made hats. What wonder if the scarlet of the hat in the window had faded somewhat—and what wonder if the scarlet of the letter on her bosom had faded even more?... Because it had all been for him, her son, her first-born. And he must never, never know! He must have his chance in the world. Though the woman should fail, at least the man must not.

So it was thus that, heavy-hearted enough now, she brought him to see the place where his mother had lived these twenty years. And now he knew about it, must know. It took all her courage—the last drop of her splendid, unflinching woman-courage.

"Come in, Don," she said. "Welcome home!"

He looked about him, still frowning with what was on his mind.

"Home?" said he.

"Don!" she said softly.

"Tough work, wasn't it, waiting for me to get through, dear Mom? For I know you did wait. I know you meant that some day——"

He laid a hand on her head, his lips trembling. He knew he was postponing, evading. She shrank back in some conviction also of postponing, evading. All her soul was honest. She hated deceit—though all her life she had been engaged in this glorious deceit which now was about to end.

"Tough sometimes, yes," she said, smiling up at him. "But don't you like it?"

"If my dad had lived," said Don, "or if he had had very much to give either of us, you'd never have lived this way at all. Too bad he died, wasn't it, Mom?"

He smiled also, or tried to smile, yet restraint was upon them both, neither dared ask why.

She caught up his hand suddenly, spying upon it a strand of blood.

"Don!" she exclaimed, wiping it with her kerchief, "you are hurt!"

He laughed at this. "Surely you don't know much of boxing or football," said he.

"You ought not to fight," she reproved him. "On your first day—and all the town saw it, Don! You and I—we ought not to fight. What—on the first day I've seen you in all these years—the first day you're out of college—the first day I could ever in all my life claim you for my very own? I believe I would have claimed you—yes, I do! But you came—when you knew you had a mother, why you came to her, didn't you, Don? Even me. But you mustn't fight."

"Why?" He turned upon her quickly, his voice suddenly harsh, his eyes narrowing under drawn brows. "Why shouldn't I fight?"

He seemed suddenly grown graver, more mature, strong, masterful, his eye threatening. She almost smiled as she looked at him, goodly as he was, her pride that she had borne him overpowering all, her exultation that she had brought a man into the world, a strong man, one fit to prevail, scornful of hurt—one who had fought for her! For the first time in her life a man had fought for her, and not against her.

But on the soul of Aurora Lane still sat the ancient dread. She saw the issue coming now.

"Mother——" said he, throwing his hat upon the table and walking toward her quickly.

"Yes, Don." (She had named her son DieudonnÉ—"God-given." Those who did not know what this might mean later called him "Dewdonny," and hence "Don.")

"I didn't thrash them half enough, those fellows, just now."

"Don't say that, Don. It was too bad—it was terrible that it had to be today, right when you were first coming here. I had been waiting for you so long, and I wanted——"

"Well, I tell you what I want—I want you just to come away with me. I want to get you away from this town, right away, at once, as quick as I can. I'm beginning to see some things and to wonder about others. I am ashamed I have cost you so much—in spite of what Dad left, you had to live close—I can see that now—although I never knew a thing about it until right now. I feel like a big loafer, spending all the money I have, while you have lived like this. Where did you get it, Mom?"

She swept a gesture about her with both hands. "I got it here," said she suddenly. "It all came from—here. You father sent you—nothing! I've not let you know all the truth—you've known almost nothing of the truth."

Then her native instinct forced her to amend. "At least half of it came from here. It was honest money, Don, you know it was that, don't you—you believe it was honest?"

"Money that would have burned my fingers if I had known how it came. But I didn't. What's up here? Have you fooled me, tricked me—made a loafer of me? I supposed my father set aside enough for my education—and enough for you, too. What's been wrong here? What's under all this? Tell me, now!"

His mother's eyes were turned away from him. "At least we have done it, Don," said she, with her shrewd, crooked smile. "We've not to do it over again. You can't forget what you have learned—you can't get away from your college education now, can you? You've got it—your diploma, your degree in engineering. You're a college man, Don, the only one in Spring Valley. And I'm so proud, and I'm so glad. Oh! Don—Don——"

She laid a hand on his breast shyly, almost afraid of him now—the first hand she had ever laid upon the heart of any man these twenty years. It was her son, a man finished, a gentleman, she hoped.... Could he not be a gentleman? So many things of that sort happened here in America. Poor boys had come up and come through—had they not? And even a poor boy might grow up to be a gentleman—was not that true—oh, might it not after all be true?

He laid his own hand over hers now, the hand on which the blood was not yet dried.

"Mom," said he, "I ought to go back and thrash the life out of that man yet. I ought to wring the neck of that doddering old fool marshal. I ought to whip every drunken loafer on those streets. Whose business was it? Couldn't we cross the square without all that?"

He stopped suddenly, the fatal thought ever recurring to his mind. But he lacked courage. Why should he not? Was this not far worse than facing death for both of them? Their eyes no longer sought one another.

"Mom——" said he, with effort now.

"Yes, my boy."

"Where's my dad?"

A long silence fell. Could she lie to him now?

"The truth now!" he said after a time.

"You have none, Don!" said she gaspingly at last. "He's gone. Isn't that enough? He's dead—yes—call him dead—for he's gone."

He pushed back roughly and looked at her straight.

"Did he really leave any money for my education?"

She looked at him, her throat fluttering. "I wish I could lie," said she. "I do wish I could lie to you. I have almost forgot how. I have been trying so long to live on the square—I don't believe, Don, I know how to do any different. I've been trying to live so that—so that——"

"So what, mother?"

"So I could be worthy of you, Don! That's been about all my life."

"I have no father?"

She could not reply.

"Then was what—what that man said—was that the truth?"

After what seemed to both of them an age of agony she looked up.

She nodded mutely.

Then her hand gripped fiercely at his coat lapel. A great dread filled her. Must she lose also her boy, for whom she had lived, for whom she had denied herself all these years—the boy who was more than life itself to her? Her face was white. She looked up into another face, a strange face, that of her son; and it was white as her own.

"I didn't know it," said he simply at length. "Of course, if I had known, I wouldn't have done what I did. I would have worked."

"No, no! Now you are just fitted to work. It's over—it's done—we have put you through."

"You told me my father was dead. Where is he—who is he?"

"I will never tell you, Don," said she steadily, "not so long as you live will I tell you. I have never told anyone on earth, and I never will."

"Then how do they know—then why should that man say what he did?"

"They know—about you—that—that you happened—that's all. They thought you died as a child, a baby—we sent you away. They don't know who it was—your father—I couldn't have lived here if anyone had known—that was my secret—my one secret—and I will keep it all my life. But here are you, my boy! I will not say I am sorry—I will never say that again! I am glad—I'm glad for anything that's given me you! And you fought for me—the first time anyone ever did, Don."

He was turning away from her now slowly, and she followed after him, agonized.

"It wasn't your fault, Don!" said she. "Try to remember that always. Haven't I taken it up with God—there on my knees?" She pointed to the little room where the corner of the white bed showed. "On my knees!"

She followed him as he still walked away. "Oh, Don," she cried, "what do you mean, and what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to try to forget everything of all my life. God! if I could undo it—if I could forget how I got my education," said he. "Tell me, didn't he help at all—did you, all alone, bring me up, far away, never seeing me, educating me, keeping me—taking care of me—didn't he, my father, do anything at all—for you?"

"No, I did it—or at least half of it."

"And who the other half?"

"Never mind, Don, never mind." She patted eagerly on the lapel of his coat, which once more she had caught and was fingering. "Oh, this was to have been my very happiest day—I have been living and working for this all these long, long years—for the day when I'd see you. Let me have a little of it, can't you, Don? If you should forsake me now, I will know that God has; and then I'll know I never had a chance."

Quickly he laid a hand upon her shoulder. "No, I'll wait."

"What do you mean?" she asked. "What is it that you will do?"

"Find out who he was," said he, his face haggard.

"You will never do that, Don."

"Oh, yes. And when I do——"

"What then?"

"I'll kill him, probably. At least I'll choke this lie or this truth, whichever it is, down the throats of this town. God! I'm filius nullius! I'm the son of no man! I'm worse. I'm a loafer. I've been supported by a woman—my own mother, who had so little, who was left alone—oh, God! God!"

"Don," she cried out now. "Don, I'd died if I could have kept it from you. Oh, my son—my son!"