"No," Tony said, "I haven't. But I've heard something, and I----"

"Ah!" Taylor exclaimed. His wife had been expressing her views strongly
and plainly to him as the weeks went by without any signs of Tony's
return, while rumour was busy with the names of Ailleen and Dickson. "I
understand, lad. You come along and see your mother. She's got it all
off by heart, and will talk to you about it. She'll tell you all you
want to know, and more besides."

"I want to hear it from you," Tony answered.

"There's mighty little I can tell you. It's all mixed up to me. It
wasn't that way with your mother and me. It was straight out dealing; no
side-tracks and cross-tracks. We started right off the reel. I said to
her----"

"Who is my mother?"

The question, the tone, the expression of his face and the look in his
eyes, made Taylor stare at Tony, speechless for the moment. The
question was so unexpected; it brought such a flood of memory into the
man's mind that his slow, heavy wits stood still, and he could only
stand staring and gaping at the alert young face.

"Who is my mother?" Tony repeated abruptly.

"Your mother? Why--what's come over you, lad? Your mother? Why--go on to
the house and ask her," Taylor replied, the only idea which came to him
being the idea to escape from the difficulty by passing it on to some
one else. But he was not to escape so easily.

"Am I your son?" Tony asked.

"My son? Why--my son? Ain't your name Taylor? Ain't you always--what's
up with you? Who's been--you haven't--what's put that in your head?"

Tony leaned his arms on the top rail of the fence and looked away across
the paddock. It was a simple question to answer, he told himself--a
simple question for this man above all others to answer; but instead of
doing so, he hesitated and was confused.

"I've heard--something," he said quietly. Now that he was face to face
with the mystery, he lost his irritation and impatience. It was all
true, he told himself. There was something which had been kept from him;
something which Ailleen had learned and resented; something
which----"I've heard something," he repeated, checking his thoughts. "I
came straight to you to ask if it were true. If it were not, you need
not--you would have said so."

"I don't know what you've heard," Taylor said slowly. "I don't know,
and I don't care; for I ain't a man to catch an idea quick like. But
I'll tell you this: you'd never have heard it from me--never. You