ed husks:

"I had to do it. He deserved it."

The mother had not seen the nicks on the cartridges, but she needed no
such evidence. She wailed:

"You don't mean that you--no--no--you didn't k-kill-ill-ill--"

The word rattled in her throat, and she went to the floor like a
toppling bolster. It was the old man that lifted her face from the rug,
ran to fetch water, and knelt to restore her. The son just wavered in
his chair and kept saying:

"I had to do it. He was making her life a--"

"Her life?" the old man groaned, looking up where he knelt. "Then
there's a woman in it?"

"Yes, it was for her. She's had a hard time. She's been horribly
misunderstood. She may have been indiscreet--still she's a noble woman
at heart. Her husband was a vile dog. He deserved it."

But the old man's head had dropped as if his neck were cracked. He saw
what it all meant and would mean. He would have sprawled to the floor,
but he caught sight of the pitiful face of his old love still white with
the half-death of her swoon. He clenched his will with ferocity,
resolving that he must not break, could not, would not break. He laid a
hand on his son's knee and said, appealingly, in a low tone, as if he
were the suppliant for mercy:

"Better not mention anything about--about her--the woman you know,
Steve--before your mother, not just now. Your mother's kind of poorly
the last few days. Understand, Steve?"

The answer was a nod like the silly nodding of a toy mandarin.

It was a questionable mercy, restoring the mother just then from the
bliss of oblivion, but she came gradually back through a fog of daze to
the full glare of fact. Her thoughts did not run forward upon the
scandal, the horror of the public, the outcry of all the press; she had
but one thought, her son's welfare.

"Did anybody see you, Steve?"

"No. I went to his room. I don't think anybody s-saw me--yes, maybe the
man across the hall did. Yes, I guess he saw me. He was at his door when
I came out. He looked as if he sus-suspected-ed me. I suppose he heard
the shots. And probably he s-saw the revol-ver. I couldn't seem to let
it drop--to le-let it drop."

The mother turned frantic. "They'll come here for you, Stevie. They'll
find it out. You must get away--somewhere--for just now, till we can
think up something to do. Father will find some way of making everything
all right, won't you, Paw? He always does, you know. Don't be scared, my
boy. We must keep very calm.