mbling voice went on:

"He never spoke to me as though we were strangers. Never, from the first.
And to-day, he----" Her heart's throbbing shook her. The Mother said:

"He has told me what has passed. He said that he had asked you to marry
him, and you had--agreed." The bitterness of her wounded love was in her
tone.

"I--had forgotten," she panted, "_that_--until one little careless thing
he said brought it all back to me in such a flood. It was like drowning.
Then you came, and--and----" The quavering, pitiful voice rose to a cry:
"Mother, must I tell him everything?" She cowered down in the enfolding
arms. "Mother, Mother, must I tell him?"

A great wave of pity surged out from the deep mother-heart that throbbed
against her own. The deep, melodious voice answered with one word:

"No."

Amazement sat on the uplifted, woebegone face of the girl. The sorrowful
eyes questioned the Mother's incredulously.

"You mean that you----"

She folded the slight figure to her. Her sorrowful eyes, under their great
jetty arches, looked out like stars through a night of storm. Her greyish
pallor seemed a thin veil of ashes covering incandescent furnace-fires.
She rose up, lifting the slender figure. She said, looking calmly in the
face:

"I mean that you are not to tell him. Upon your obedience to me I charge
you not to tell him. Upon your love for me I command you--never to tell
him! Kiss me, and dry these dear eyes. Put up your hair; a coil is
loosened. He is waiting for us! Come!"

XLII

The tall, soldierly young figure was standing motionless and stiff, as
though on guard, on the river-shore beyond the bend. Whatever
apprehensions, whatever regrets, whatever fears may have warred within
Beauvayse, whatever consciousness may have been his of having taken an
irrevocable step, bound to bring disgrace and reproach, sorrow, and
repentance upon the innocent as upon the guilty, he showed no sign as he
came to meet them, and lifted the Service felt from his golden head, and
held out an eager hand for Lynette's. She gave it shyly, and with the
thrill of contact Beauvayse's last scruple fled. He turned his beautiful,
flushed face and shining eyes upon the Mother, and asked with grave
simplicity:

"Ma'am, is not this mine?"

"First tell me, do you know that there is nothing in it?"

Her stern eyes searched his. He laughed and said, as he kissed the slender
hand:

"It holds everything for me!"

"Another questio