id suddenly:

"Now, why did your husband leave you--not because you called him 'the
limit,' you know?"

Val saw his uncle lift his eyes to the witness box, without moving his
face; heard a shuffle of papers behind him; and instinct told him that
the issue was in peril. Had Uncle Soames and the old buffer behind made
a mess of it? His mother was speaking with a slight drawl.

"No, my Lord, but it had gone on a long time."

"What had gone on?"

"Our differences about money."

"But you supplied the money. Do you suggest that he left you to better
his position?"

'The brute! The old brute, and nothing but the brute!' thought Val
suddenly. 'He smells a rat he's trying to get at the pastry!' And his
heart stood still. If--if he did, then, of course, he would know that
his mother didn't really want his father back. His mother spoke again, a
thought more fashionably.

"No, my Lord, but you see I had refused to give him any more money. It
took him a long time to believe that, but he did at last--and when he
did...."

"I see, you had refused. But you've sent him some since."

"My Lord, I wanted him back."

"And you thought that would bring him?"

"I don't know, my Lord, I acted on my father's advice."

Something in the Judge's face, in the sound of the papers behind him, in
the sudden crossing of his uncle's legs, told Val that she had made just
the right answer. 'Crafty!' he thought; 'by Jove, what humbug it all
is!'

The Judge was speaking:

"Just one more question, Mrs. Dartie. Are you still fond of your
husband?"

Val's hands, slack behind him, became fists. What business had that
Judge to make things human suddenly? To make his mother speak out of her
heart, and say what, perhaps, she didn't know herself, before all these
people! It wasn't decent. His mother answered, rather low: "Yes, my
Lord." Val saw the Judge nod. 'Wish I could take a cock-shy at your
head!' he thought irreverently, as his mother came back to her seat
beside him. Witnesses to his father's departure and continued absence
followed--one of their own maids even, which struck Val as particularly
beastly; there was more talking, all humbug; and then the Judge
pronounced the decree for restitution, and they got up to go. Val walked
out behind his mother, chin squared, eyelids drooped, doing his level
best to despise everybody. His mother's voice in the corridor roused him
from an angry trance.

"You behaved beautifully, dear. It was such