"Hush, my darling boy, be patient with me. He said he must be up
betimes, to run down the rest of the quails you had ordered him to bring
you. But before leaving the Professors he beguiled them into giving him
up their permit."

"Then," said George, striding about the room with his face flushed and
his eyes flashing, "he was the man with whom I walked down this
afternoon."

"Exactly so."

"And he must have changed his dress?"

"Exactly so."

"But where and how?"

"At some place not very far down on the other side the range, where he
had hidden his old clothes."

"And who, in the name of all that we hold most sacred, do you take him to
have been--for I see you know more than you have yet told me?"

"My son, he was Higgs the Sunchild, father to that boy whom I love next
to my husband more dearly than any one in the whole world."

She folded her arms about him for a second, without kissing him, and left
him. "And now," she said, the moment she had closed the door--"and now I
may cry."

* * * * *

She did not cry for long, and having removed all trace of tears as far as
might be, she returned to her son outwardly composed and cheerful. "Shall
I say more now," she said, seeing how grave he looked, "or shall I leave
you, and talk further with you to-morrow?"

"Now--now--now!"

"Good! A little before Higgs came here, the Mayor, as he now is, poor,
handsome, generous to a fault so far as he had the wherewithal, was
adored by all the women of his own rank in Sunch'ston. Report said that
he had adored many of them in return, but after having known me for a
very few days, he asked me to marry him, protesting that he was a changed
man. I liked him, as every one else did, but I was not in love with him,
and said so; he said he would give me as much time as I chose, if I would
not point-blank refuse him; and so the matter was left.

"Within a week or so Higgs was brought to the prison, and he had not been
there long before I found, or thought I found, that I liked him better
than I liked Strong. I was a fool--but there! As for Higgs, he liked,
but did not love me. If I had let him alone he would have done the like
by me; and let each other alone we did, till the day before he was taken
down to the capital. On that day, whether through his fault or mine I
know not--we neither of us meant it--it was as though Nature, my dear,
was determined that you should not slip through her fingers--well, on
that day