p from the window-seat and roamed in the big grey ghostly room,
whose walls were hung with silvered canvas. This house his father said
in that death-bed letter--had been built for his mother to live in--with
Fleur's father! He put out his hand in the half-dark, as if to grasp the
shadowy hand of the dead. He clenched, trying to feel the thin vanished
fingers of his father; to squeeze them, and reassure him that he--he was
on his father's side. Tears, prisoned within him, made his eyes feel dry
and hot. He went back to the window. It was warmer, not so eerie, more
comforting outside, where the moon hung golden, three days off full; the
freedom of the night was comforting. If only Fleur and he had met on
some desert island without a past--and Nature for their house! Jon had
still his high regard for desert islands, where breadfruit grew, and the
water was blue above the coral. The night was deep, was free--there was
enticement in it; a lure, a promise, a refuge from entanglement, and
love! Milksop tied to his mother's...! His cheeks burned. He shut the
window, drew curtains over it, switched off the lighted sconce, and went
up-stairs.

The door of his room was open, the light turned up; his mother, still in
her evening gown, was standing at the window. She turned and said:

"Sit down, Jon; let's talk." She sat down on the window-seat, Jon on his
bed. She had her profile turned to him, and the beauty and grace of her
figure, the delicate line of the brow, the nose, the neck, the strange
and as it were remote refinement of her, moved him. His mother never
belonged to her surroundings. She came into them from somewhere--as it
were! What was she going to say to him, who had in his heart such things
to say to her?

"I know Fleur came to-day. I'm not surprised." It was as though she had
added: "She is her father's daughter!" And Jon's heart hardened. Irene
went on quietly:

"I have Father's letter. I picked it up that night and kept it. Would
you like it back, dear?"

Jon shook his head.

"I had read it, of course, before he gave it to you. It didn't quite do
justice to my criminality."

"Mother!" burst from Jon's lips.

"He put it very sweetly, but I know that in marrying Fleur's father
without love I did a dreadful thing. An unhappy marriage, Jon, can play
such havoc with other lives besides one's own. You are fearfully young,
my darling, and fearfully loving. Do you think you can possibly be