By the time Don Lane had reached his mother's house he partially had pulled himself together, but his face was still pale and sullen, not yet recovered from the late encounter.

He cast himself down in a chair, his chin in his hand, looking everywhere but at his mother. His wounds, poor lad, were of the soul, slow to heal. The white-faced woman who sat looking at him had also her wounds, scarred though they were, these years. Her features seemed sharpened, her eyes larger for the dark shadows now about them. But she was first to speak.

"Wasn't it enough, Don," said she—"didn't I have enough without all this? And on the very day I have looked forward to so long—so long! You don't know how I have worked and waited for this very day. Why, it's the first time I've ever seen you, since you were a baby. You're a stranger to me—I don't know you yet. And then all this comes—now, on my one happy day."

"Well, how about it, then?" he demanded brusquely. "You know what they've been saying—I couldn't let it go. I had to fight!"

"Yes, yes, you have—and in a few hours you've undone twenty years of work for me. The sleeping dogs were lying. Why waken them this late?"

"Who was my father?" demanded the young man, now, sternly. "Come, it's time for me to know. I couldn't help loving you—no one could. But—him! Tell me—was it that man who defended me? Is my name Don Brooks?"

She made him no answer, though her throat throbbed and she half started as though at a blow.

"Oh, no, oh, no! What am I saying! Of course you understand, mother," he went on after a long, long silence, "I don't believe anything of this, not even what you have said to me about my being—well, filius nullius. There was a quick divorce—a hidden decree—you separated, you two—he was poor—that often happens. Women never like to talk about it. I can't blame you for calling me 'nobody's son,' for that sort of thing does happen—secret and suppressed divorces, you know. But as to that other——"

For a long time Aurora Lane sat facing a temptation to accept this loophole of escape which thus crudely her boy offered her—escape from the bitter truth. He would fight! He—and Hod Brooks—those two might defy all the town—might cow them all to silence even now. But—once more her inborn honesty and courage, her years-old resolution triumphed.

"I cannot tell you who your father was, Don," said she quietly, at length, ash pale, trembling.

"When were you married—when—where?"

"I was never married, Don! What I told you was true! Oh, you make me say a thing to you I ought never to have been asked to say, but it is the truth. You may believe it—you must believe it—it's—it's no good keeping on evading—for it's true, all of it." She was gasping, choking, now. "This is a ghastly thing to have to do," she cried at last. "Ah, it oughtn't ever to have been asked of me."

The boy's breath also came in a quick sob now.

"Mother, that's not true—it can't be! Why, where does that leave you—where does it leave me?"

Her voice rose as she looked at him, so young and strong, so fine, so manly.

"But I'm not sorry," she exclaimed, "I'm not—I'm not!"

"So what they told me—what I made them all take back—it was true?" He sank back in his chair.

"Yes, Don. We can't fight. We are ruined."

"Born out of wedlock!—But my father only ran away—you told me he was dead."

"Regard him so, Don."

"Where is he—who was he? Why did that man tell me to fight them all?"

"I will never tell you, Don, never."

Her dark eyes were turned upon him now, eyes unspeakably sad.

"But you must! You wouldn't deny me my own chance in the world?"

"You will have to make your own chance, Don, as I did. We all must. I have my secret. The door is closed. There is no power ever can open that door—not even my love for you, my boy. Besides, the knowledge could be of no use to you."

"Yes? Is that indeed so? You would debar me from the one great right of all my life? Tell me, is my guess right? I'll make that man marry you."

"Ah, you mean revenge?"

He nodded, savagely, his jaws shut tight. But his brow grew troubled. "But not if he came out and stood by me and you, even this late. I suppose——"

"There is no revenge for a woman, Don. They only dream there is—once I dreamed there might be for me. I don't want it now. I am content. There's more pity than revenge about me now. I only want to be fair now, if I can, and now I'm glad—this is my one glorious day. For you're mine. You are my boy—and I'll never say that I am sorry. Because I've got you. They can't help that, can they, Don?"

"He got us out of worse trouble, didn't he? Why did he do that, Mother? What made him look at us the way he did? And what made the other lawyer, Henderson, drop the case? How did they settle it out of court? Lucky for us—but why?" He spoke sharply, abruptly.

A trifle of color came to Aurora Lane's cheeks. "It was his way," she said. "He's a good lawyer—advancing right along, more and more every year, they say. He's always had a hard time getting a start. He's like me."

Don Lane sat silent for a time, but what he thought he held. He cast a discontented glance about him at the meager surroundings of his mother's home, with which he could claim no familiarity.

"How did you manage it, Mother?" he asked, at length. "How did you get me through—big, ignorant loafer that I've been all my life. You say he never helped any. Was he so poor as all that?"

"I couldn't have done it alone," said Aurora Lane, slowly. Mechanically she smoothed down the folds of her gown in her lap as she spoke.

"I have told you you had two mothers, if no father," said she at last, suddenly. "That's almost true. You don't know how much you owe to Miss Julia. She helped me put you through school! It was her little salary and my little earnings—well, they have proved enough."

"Go on!" said he, bitterly. "Tell me more! Humiliate me all you can! Tell me more of what I ought to know. Good God!" He squared his shoulders as if to throw off some weight which he felt upon them.

His mother looked at him in silence for some time. "Shall I tell you all about it, Don?" she said. "All that I may?"

He nodded, frowning. "Let's have it over and done with."

"When I came here I was young," said Aurora Lane, slowly, after a long time. "Julia was young, too, just a girl. We both had to make our way. Then—then—it happened."

"You didn't love me, Mother? You hated me?"

"Oh, yes, I loved you—you don't know what you say—you don't know how I loved you. But everything was very hard and cruel.... Well, one night I had made up my mind what I must do....

"I washed you all clean that night. I dressed you the best I could—I didn't have much for you. But you were a sweet baby, and strong. I was kissing you and saying good-by to you then, when Miss Julia came in, right at the door."

"I was kissing you and saying good-bye ... when Miss Julia came in—"

"You were going to put me in a home—in some institution?"

"No!" She spoke now in short, quick, sobbing breaths.... "Don, do you know the little stream that runs through the edge of the town? Do you know the deep pool beneath the bridge where the water turns around? Well, I had washed you and dressed you.... I was going to put you there.... It was then that Julia came."

He turned upon her a face which it seemed to her never again could be happy and free from care.

"I didn't know all this, Mother," said he, quietly, whitely. "I ask your pardon. I ask you to forgive me."

"No, I have told you I wanted to spare you all this—I wanted that door to remain closed forever. But now it is open—you have opened it. I will have to tell you what there is behind."

It seemed many moments before she could summon self-control to go on.

"...So we two sat here in this little room, Julia and I. You were in my lap, holding up your hands and kicking up your feet, and we two wept over you—we prayed over you, too—she, that little crippled girl, hopeless, who could never have a boy of her own! I told her what I was going to do with you. She fought me and took you away from me.... And she saved you ... and she saved me.

"So now you have it." He heard her voice trailing on somewhere at a distance which seemed immeasurable. "You owe your life not to one woman, but to two, after all. Now you know why I called you DieudonnÉ. God sent you to me. As I have known how, I have resolved to pay my debt to God—for you. I want to pity, not hate. I want to be grateful. I want to be fair, if I can learn how."

Aurora spoke no more for some moments, nor did her son.

"We two talked it all over between us," said she after a time. "She asked me then, once, who was your father—Julia did. I said he was poor. I told her never to ask me again. She never has. Oh, a good woman, Julia Delafield—fine, fine as the Lord ever made!

"But she knew—we both knew—that I did not have the means of bringing you up. We put our hearts together—to own you. We put our little purses together—to bring you up. She took you away from me, pretty soon. She sent you to some of her people, very distant relatives. They were poor, too, but they took you in and they never knew—they died, both of them, who took you in.

"Then for a time we sent you to an institution for orphans. But we told everybody here that you had died. I told him so—your—your father—and I forbade him ever to speak to me again. I told you he was dead. I told him you were dead. He is dead. So are you dead. But all the dead have come to life. The lost is found. Oh, Don, Don, the lost is found! I've found so much today—so much, so much. You're my boy, my own boy. A man!"

He sat mute. At length she went on.

"We schemed and saved and contrived, all the little ways that we could to save our money—we have both done that all our lives for you. We wanted to educate you, your mothers did. And oh! above all things we wanted the secret kept. I did the best I knew. They all thought you died. I didn't want you to come here—it was Miss Julia. I didn't know you were coming till you wired. I was going to tell you not to come up—even from the depot. But you got in the bus. I was delayed there in the square by those men. And then all this happened. And after twenty years!"

She sat silent, using all her splendid command of her own soul to still the stubborn fluttering in her throat.

DieudonnÉ Lane looked everywhere but at her.

"Mother," said he at length, "did you—did you ever—love him?"

His own face flushed at the cruelty of this question, too late, after the words were gone. He saw her wince.

"I don't know, Don," said she, simply. "It happened. It couldn't again. You don't know about women. Seal your lips now, as mine are sealed. Never again a question such as that to me."

The sight of her suffering at his own words stirred the elemental rage in his heart.

"Tell me," he demanded again and again. "Who was he? Is that the man? I begin to see—I'd kill him if I knew for sure."

She only shook her head.

"But you must!" said he at last. "You are cruel. You don't know."

"What is that, Don? What do you mean? Oh, I see—it is because of her. It's Anne! There's someone else you love, more than you do me."

"Yes!" he confessed, "more than I do life. That's the reason I must know all about myself. Can't you see I've got to play fair? There's Anne!"

"Who is she, Don—you've never told me very much yet."

"Anne Oglesby—her family lived at Columbus before she was left alone. You know her—why, she's the ward of Judge Henderson, here in town. I believe she was left a considerable estate, and he handles it for her. She's been here. She's told me about this place—she's seen you, maybe—before I ever did. Yes—it's Anne! I've got to think of her. I don't dare drag her into trouble—my hands are tied."

He rose now, and in his excitement walked away from his mother, so that he did not note her face at the moment.

"You see, we met from time to time back East in our college town. I never told her much about myself, because I didn't know much about myself, really, when it comes to that. I said I was an orphan, and poor. But—I'd made all the teams—and I've studied, too. I was valedictorian, in spite of all, Mother. They don't amount to much, usually—valedictorians—but I was sure I would—when I knew that Anne——

"I didn't know about our caring for one another until we found we had to part—just now, today, this morning on the train before I got off here. Then we couldn't part, you know. So just before we passed through this town, right on the train—today, in less than half an hour before I met you—this morning, this very day, I—we—well——"

"Yes, Don," she said, "I know!" Her eyes were very large, her face very pale.

He choked.

"But now we've got to part," said he. "If I am nobody, or worse, I've got to be fair with her."

A look of pride came into his mother's face at his words. "I'm glad, Don," said she. "You've got honor in you. But in no case could I see you marry that girl."

He turned upon her in sudden astonishment. "Isn't she as good as we are? Isn't her family—don't you know the Oglesbys of Columbus—who they are and what they stand for—where they came from? Can we say as much?"

"They are better than we can claim to be, Don, yes," said she, ignoring his brutal frankness. "I know her, yes. I knew her years ago—the ward of Judge Henderson. Sometimes she has been here and kept his household for him—some day she'll live with Judge Henderson even if she marries. He's very fond of her. But as to your marrying Anne Oglesby, you must not think of it."

"What on earth!" he began. "What have you against her?"

"It is enough that I feel as I do about any girl who has been here and who knows about—about the way—the way I've lived. Will she know who I am when she knows who you are—and what you are not? Has she identified us two—have you really been fair with her?" Now the color began to rise in her paled cheeks.

"I've not had time yet! I told you it all happened just a moment ago." Then, still brutally, he went on. "Why, what do you know of love? What do you know about the way I feel toward Anne?"

"Be as cruel as you like," said she, flushing now under such words. "I presume you feel as all men think they feel sometimes. They see that woman for that moment—they think that they believe what they say—they think they must do what they do. You are a man, yes, Don, or you could not have said to me what you have."

He flung out his arms, impatient. "I am having a fine start, am I not? I'm a beggar, a pauper, and worse than that. I've got to pay you and Miss Julia. I've got to go on through life, with that secret on my mind. I can't confront that man and tell him. You and I—just today meeting—why, we begin to argue. And now I've got to face Anne Oglesby with that secret. It can't be a secret from her. I'd never ask her to join her life to one like mine. And—God! a woman like her.... I can't tell you.... Death—why, I believe this is worse."

"Don't tell me, Don, don't try." She turned to him, her voice hoarse and low. "It's a wrong thing for you to talk to me about things of that sort. Birds out of the nest begin all over again—this must begin again, I suppose—but it's too awful—too terrible. I don't want to hear any more talk about love. But rather than see you live with her, rather than see you talk that way of her, it seems to me I'd rather die. Because, she knows all about me—or will. What made you come? Why didn't you stay away? Why couldn't you find some other girl to love, away from here?"

"Which shows how much you really care for my happiness! I suppose, like many women, you are stubborn. Is that it, mother?"

She winced under this, wringing her hands. "If I could only lie—if I only could!"

"And if I only could, also!" he repeated after her. "But she's coming tomorrow, Mother—I've made her promise she'd come to see you. She said she'd make some excuse to come down and see her guardian. I'm going to meet her tomorrow. And when I do, I've got to tell her what I've learned today—every word of it—all—all! And I'll be helpless. I'll not be able to fight. I'll have to take it."

"That's right, Don, that's right. Even if I loved her as you do, even if it were the best thing in the world for you if you could marry her, I'd say that you should not. Don, whatever you do, don't ever be crooked with a woman. She's a woman, too. No matter what it cost, I couldn't see her suffer by finding out anything after it was too late."

"It won't take long," said he, simply. "We'll part tomorrow. But oh! Why did you save me—why did Miss Julia come that night? My place was under the water—there! Then the door would have been closed indeed. But now all the doors are closed on ahead, and none behind. I'll never be happy again. And I'm making her unhappy, too, who's not to blame. It runs far, doesn't it?—far and long."

"As you grow older, Don," said she, "you will find it doesn't so much matter whether or not you are happy."

He shook his head. "I'm done. It's over. There's nothing ahead for me. I never had a chance. Mother, you and Miss Julia made a bad mistake."

It seemed that she scarcely heard him, or as though his words, brutal, cruel though they were, no longer impinged upon her consciousness. She spoke faintly, as though almost breathless, yet addressed herself to him.

"Why, Don, it was here in this very room ... and you lay in my arms and looked up at me and laughed. You were so sweet.... But what shall I do? I love you, and I want you to love me, and you can't. What have I done to you? Oh, wasn't the world cruel enough to me, Don? Oh, yes, yes, it runs far—far and long, a woman's sin! You are my sin. And oh! I love you, and I will not repent! God do so to me—I'll not repent!"

He looked at her, still frowning, but with tenderness under the pain of his own brow. At last he flung himself on his knees before her and dropped his head into her lap.

He felt her hands resting on his head as though in shelter—hands that lay side by side, hands long and shapely once, but bruised and worn now with labor could he but have seen them—Aurora's hands—he could not have helped but realize her long years of toil. He heard her faint, steady sobbing now.

After a time she bent lower above his head as he knelt there, silent and motionless. Slowly her hand began once more to stroke his hair.