sed me to wear it as soon as Herr Kreutzer gives
consent."

Mrs. Vanderlyn found this too much for calm reception. She did not
wish to, she would not believe.

"Why do you say such things?" she demanded of her son. "You're just
trying to save him. Why did he confess?"

Kreutzer, now, looked at her with calm, cold dignity. His turn had
come. Had she been a man he would have taken it with vehemence and
pleasure; because she was not a man he took it with a careful
self-repression but no lack of emphasis.

"I will tell you, Madame, why I made confession. It may be that you
will not understand, but so it is. I told you that it had been I who
stole the ring because I love my little girl so much that I would go
to prison--ah, Madame, I would die!--rather than permit that she
should suffer. For a mad moment, overborne by your amazing claims, I
did believe that she had taken that ring. I thought that she had taken
it to help her poor old father--the old flute-player who never has
been able to give to his daughter what he wished to give, or what she
deserved to have. I thought, perhaps, that Anna, swept away by sorrow
for my struggling, had yielded to temptation to help _me_--the
mistaken impulse of a loving child. No crime--no crime! I understand,
now, what she meant when she was speaking with me. Her 'secret!' Her
'temptation!'"

He turned to John, now, and addressed him, solely. "Her 'temptation'
was to be your wife when I had made her promise that she would not
think of men until I came to her and told her that I had picked out
the one for her. I see it, now; I see it. Her 'temptation'--it was
only to become your wife!"

John laughed. "I'm mighty glad it was!" said he. "Yes; that was it;
and it's all settled."

Mrs. Vanderlyn now rose in wrath. Was it credible that her own son,
whom she had reared, as she had thought, to worship all the things
she worshiped, wealth, position, rank, could have conceived an actual
affection for this penniless, positionless, impossible flute-player's
daughter?

"Settled that you marry her?" she cried. "The daughter of this old
musician? It's impossible! Impossible!"

Her son looked at her deprecatingly. There was not a sign of yielding
on his face, but there was plainly written there a keen desire to win
her to his side. "Don't say that, mother," he implored, "I love--"

But she was not so easily to be placated. She had an argument to use,
which, in her wrath, she fancied might be