to control myself.

"I ought to remember that your mother is an old woman, and an invalid,
and not allow myself to get angry at some of the unjust things she
says," I returned, swallowing hard. "So we'll just forget all about it
and pretend it never happened."

"You darling!" Dicky exclaimed, drawing me closer, and for a moment or
two I rested in his arms, gathering courage for the confession I meant
to make to him.

"Dicky, dear," I murmured at last, "there is something I want to tell
you about this miserable business, something I ought to have told you
before, but I kept putting it off."

Dicky held me from him and looked at me quizzically, "'Confession is
good for the soul,'" he quoted, "so unburden your dreadful secret."

He drew me to an easy chair and sat down, holding me in his arms as if
I were a little child. "Now for it," he said, smiling tenderly at me.

"It isn't so very terrible," I smiled at him reassured by his
tenderness. "It is only that without telling you a deliberate untruth,
that I gave both you and your mother the impression I had never seen
Mr. Gordon before that night at the Sydenham."

"Is that all?" mocked Dicky. "Why, I knew that the moment you spoke
as you did that night! You're as transparent as a child, my dear, and
besides, your elderly friend let the cat out of the bag when he said
he feared he had annoyed you by trying to find out your identity. I
knew you must have seen him somewhere."

"You don't know all," I persisted, and then without reservation I told
him frankly the whole story of Mr. Gordon's spying upon me. I omitted
nothing.

When I had finished, Dicky's face had lost its quizzical look. He was
frowning, not angrily, but as if puzzled.

"Don't think I blame you one bit," he said slowly; "but it looks to me
as if mother's dope might be right, as if the old guy is smitten with
you after all."

"I cannot hope to make your understand, Dicky," I began, "how confused
my emotions are concerning Mr. Gordon. I think perhaps I can tell you
best by referring to something about which we have never talked but
once--the story I told you before we were married of the tragedy in my
mother's life."

"I believe you told me that neither your mother nor you had ever heard
anything of your father since he left." Dicky's voice was casual, but
there was a note in it that puzzled me.

"That is true," I answered, and then stopped, for the conviction had
suddenly come to me that while