went so far as
to say the picture was immodest because of the gown, and in his anger
turned it to the wall. You can see for yourself how unjust was that
criticism. He found out he was wrong and said so afterward, but it did
not heal the wound. Your mother was crushed and outraged.

"That night she came up to the studio and poured out her heart to me.
I won't go over it--I cannot. There was in her eyes something that
frightened me. Then my own were opened. Down in front of me lay an
abyss; around it were the two paths. All night I paced the floor; I
laid my soul bare; I pleaded; I argued with myself. I reasoned it out
with God; I urged her unhappiness--the difference in their ages; the
harshness of the older man; her patient submission. Then there rose up
before me the sterner law--my own responsibility; the trust placed in
my hands; her youth, my youth. Gradually the mist in my mind cleared
and I saw the path ahead. There was but one road: that I must take!

"When the dawn broke I lifted the portrait from where your father had
placed it with its face against the wall; kissed it with all the
reverence a boy's soul could have for his ideal, crept down the
stairs, saddled my horse and rode away.

"Ten years later--after your father's death--I again went to Derwood
Manor--in the autumn--in November. I wanted to look into her face once
more--even before I looked into my own father's--to see the brook we
loved, the hills we wandered over, the porch where we sat and talked.
I had heard nothing of the house being in ruins, or of your mother's
death. Everything was gone! Everything--everything!"

Adam rested his head in his hands, his fingers shielding his eyes.
Philip sat looking at him in silence, his face torn with conflicting
emotions--astonishment, sympathy, an intense love for the man
predominating. Adam continued, the words coming in half-muffled tones,
from behind his hands, as if he were talking to himself, with now and
then a pause.

"You wonder, Phil, why I live alone this way--you often ask me that
question. Do you know why? It is because I have never been able to
love any other woman. She set a standard for me that no other woman
has ever filled. All my young life was bound up in her long after I
left her. For years I thought of nothing else; my only hope was in
keeping away. I would not be responsible for myself or for her if we
ever met again. She wasn't mine; she was your father's. She couldn't
be mine as