ere prepared for all that?"

"I thought I was, till I began to hear her say it. Then it sounded so
incredibly silly that I told her so."

"Oh, Owen--Owen!"

"Yes: I know. I was a fool; but I couldn't help it."

"And you've mortally offended her, I suppose? That's exactly what I
wanted to prevent." She laid a hand on his shoulder. "You tiresome boy,
not to wait and let me speak for you!"

He moved slightly away, so that her hand slipped from its place. "You
don't understand," he said, frowning.

"I don't see how I can, till you explain. If you thought the time had
come to tell your grandmother, why not have asked me to do it? I had my
reasons for waiting; but if you'd told me to speak I should have done
so, naturally."

He evaded her appeal by a sudden turn. "What WERE your reasons for
waiting?"

Anna did not immediately answer. Her step-son's eyes were on her face,
and under his gaze she felt a faint disquietude.

"I was feeling my way...I wanted to be absolutely sure..."

"Absolutely sure of what?"

She delayed again for a just perceptible instant. "Why, simply of OUR
side of the case."

"But you told me you were, the other day, when we talked it over before
they came back from Ouchy."

"Oh, my dear--if you think that, in such a complicated matter, every
day, every hour, doesn't more or less modify one's surest sureness!"

"That's just what I'm driving at. I want to know what has modified
yours."

She made a slight gesture of impatience. "What does it matter, now the
thing's done? I don't know that I could give any clear reason..."

He got to his feet and stood looking down on her with a tormented brow.
"But it's absolutely necessary that you should."

At his tone her impatience flared up. "It's not necessary that I should
give you any explanation whatever, since you've taken the matter out of
my hands. All I can say is that I was trying to help you: that no other
thought ever entered my mind." She paused a moment and then added: "If
you doubted it, you were right to do what you've done."

"Oh, I never doubted YOU!" he retorted, with a fugitive stress on
the pronoun. His face had cleared to its old look of trust. "Don't be
offended if I've seemed to," he went on. "I can't quite explain myself,
either...it's all a kind of tangle, isn't it? That's why I thought I'd
better speak at once; or rather why I didn't think at all, but just
suddenly blurted the thing out----"

Anna gave him back his look