. He loved me more
than poor Daniel ever did or could, loved me enough to throw away a life
of promise, just to hang on here after every one else was gone, alone
with his 'cello and is one little memory. And I loved him enough
to--to--_Christopher, don't look at me so!"_

His eyes did not waver. You must remember his age, the immaculate,
ruthless, mid-Victorian 'teens; and you must remember his bringing-up.

"And so this was my father," he said. And then he went on without
waiting, his voice breaking into falsetto with the fierceness of his
charge. "And you would have kept on lying to me! If I hadn't happened,
just happened, to find you here, now, you would have gone on keeping me
in the dark! You would have stood by and seen me--well--_go crazy!_ Yes,
go crazy, thinking I was--well, thinking I was meant for it! And all to
save your precious--"

She was down on the floor again, what was left of the gentlewoman,
wailing.

"But you don't know what it means to a woman, Chris! You don't know what
it means to a woman!"

A wave of rebellion brought her up and she strained toward him across
the coffin.

"Isn't it something, then, that I gave you a father with a _mind_? And
if you think you've been sinned against, think of _me_! Sin! You call it
_sin_! Well, isn't it _anything at all_ that by my 'sin' my son's blood
came down to him _clean_? Tell me that!"

He shook himself, and his flame turned to sullenness.

"It's not so," he glowered.

All the girl in him, the poet, the hero-worshipping boy, rebelled. His
harassed eyes went to the wall beyond and the faces there, the ghosts of
the doomed, glorious, youth-ridden line, priceless possessions of his
dreams. He would not lose them: he refused to be robbed of a tragic
birthright. He wanted some gesture puissant enough to turn back and
blot out all that had been told him.

"It's not his!" he cried. And reaching out fiercely he dragged the
'cello away from the coffin's side. He stood for an instant at bay,
bitter, defiant.

"It's not his! It's mine! It's--it's--_ours!_"

And then he fled out into the dark of the entrance-hall and up the black
stairs. In his room there was no moonlight now, for the cloud ran over
the sky and the rain had come.

"It isn't so, it isn't so!" It was like a sob in his throat.

He struck on the full strings. And listening breathless through the
dying discord he heard the liquid whispers of the rain, nothing more. He
lashed with a wild b