o tell Addie, in quiet words. He told
his boy that he had fallen in love with Mamma when she was the wife of
another and that he had stolen Mamma's love, stolen it from that other
man. He told the story so humbly, so quietly and simply as though it
meant nothing, making this confession to his child, and as though he
were pouring out all his sufferings of the old days into the heart of a
friend. They sat talking for a long time; and it did them both good.
Then said Van der Welcke:

"Addie, go to Mamma now. She herself asked me to tell you everything. Go
to her now and give her a kiss."

The boy kissed him first, embraced him with throttling arms, with the
grip of a friend's embrace. Then he went out; and Van der Welcke,
quietly smoking, listened to his footsteps on the stairs. But then Van
der Welcke started, with a shock, reflected:

"What have I done? O my God, no, no, no I ought not to have told
him...."

But the house remained very quiet. Constance was sitting alone, in her
boudoir. Her head was bent under the light of the lamp, over her
needle-work, and her hair, changing so gently to its cloudy grey, curled
tenderly about the delicate oval of her still youthful face. There was a
sort of gentle, resigned peace in her attitude, with much pensiveness
and sadness. When Addie opened the door, he stood still and she did not
look up, thinking that it was Van der Welcke. Then he went to his
mother....

She looked up, startled:

"Is that you?"

"Yes, Mamma."

She looked up at him; and suddenly it flashed across her that he
knew....

"Papa has been speaking to me, Mamma...."

She gave a violent start, as though she had had an electric shock; her
eyes closed, her head fell back, her hands fell slackly in her lap:

"O God!" she thought. "No, oh, no, he ought not to have told him!..."

He knelt before his mother and passed his fingers softly over her face
and gently opened her eyes. She looked at him, with a pale, terrified,
shocked face and staring eyes and distorted mouth. She saw his own
fresh, soft child's face, smiling friendly....

"I know the truth now, Mamma," he said, "and, if people slander me now,
I can bear it...."

She threw her arms around him, dropped her head upon his breast. She
felt him in that embrace grown older, bigger, stronger, now quite a man.
She now felt a protector in him. But she was ashamed and again closed
her eyes:

"My boy!" she murmured. "Do you love your mother?..."

"Yes