er the sun has come into your head to talk like this, mother?"
he asked.

She placed her needlework in her lap and reached over to stroke his
head.

"Don't be cross with your mother, John," she said. "I'm sure it's all a
misunderstanding, something you can clear away with a few words, and
when you do please do not ever hold it against me for having had such
thoughts.

"You know, John, things have changed greatly since I was a girl, but I
cannot help myself from having the viewpoint of other days."

"What is it, mother? Tell me, what is it?" he asked, somewhat
impatiently.

"You won't be cross and hate me?"

"No."

"Then I'll tell you. My boy, I cannot understand why Miss Carrillo
lives in the city alone and away from her parents."

He looked at her in amazement.

"Mother, surely you don't----" he began.

It was incomprehensible, unbelievable. If she had spoken against the
name of his dead father John could not have been more startled than by
this questioning in his mother's mind of Consuello.

"I don't think anything," she said, again stroking his head. "But,
between you and me, John, there should be not even the slightest
misunderstanding. That's why I have spoken to you like this. Probably,
if she has not told you, you never thought to ask yourself that
question. Perhaps I should not ask it, even to myself, but I am a mother
and a woman and it's natural for us to doubt when it concerns one we
love."

"You have no right to misjudge," he said.

"I don't misjudge, my boy; I only wait for your answer."

It flashed into his mind that he could not answer, could not tell her
why Consuello lived in the city, but it did not cause him to waver.
Consuello's words, "Why must we always impute a misconceived motive?"
the question she had asked when they had discussed those who doubted
Gibson's sincerity, and his answer, "Because deceit has its place in the
human heart, I suppose," came back to him. He could not, however,
imagine deceit in his mother's heart, and he knew that the seed of
suspicion in her mind had been cultivated into an ugly weed of doubt by
some one else. This thought calmed the indignation which was surging
through him.

"Mother," he said, "I do not know why she lives alone in the city. She
has never told me and I have never asked. I did not consider it my
business. Not for a moment has a shadow of doubt entered my head. Can't
you see--can't you tell by looking at her?

"She may be with frie