time--a tall young man in
modern garb; a young man with good shoulders and a strong and easy
stride. His face seemed flushed with eagerness and happiness. His hat,
pushed back on his brow, showed the short curling auburn hair, strong
and dense above the brown cheeks. Those who were close might have seen
the kindly, frank and direct gaze of his open blue eyes.

A certain aloof distinction seemed to cling about the young man also as
he advanced now, laughing and bubbling over with very joy of life and
eagerness at greeting this woman at his side--this woman whose face
suddenly was glorified with a light none ever had seen it bear before.
Why not? It was his mother--Aurora Lane, the best known woman of Spring
Valley, and the woman with least reputation.

The two passed directly into the center of the town's affairs, and yet
they seemed apart in some strange way. They met greetings, but the
greetings were vague, curious. No one knew this young man.

"Huh!" exclaimed one of the two town critics once more. "There they go.
Pretty sight, ain't it! Who's he?"

Old Silas Kneebone leaned to his friend, Aaron Craybill, on the adjacent
store box. "Taller'n she is, and got red hair, too, like hers. I
wonder--but law!--No, good law! No! It kain't be. She ain't nobody's
wife, and never was."

"But there they go, walking through the streets in broad daylight, as
bold as you please," commented his crony.

"I dunno as I'd call her bold, neither," rejoined Silas. "'Rory Lane,
she's kept up her head all these years, and I must say she's minded her
own business. Everybody knows, these twenty years, she had a baby, and
that the baby died; but that's about all anybody ever did know. The
baby's dad, if it had one, has hid damned well--the man nor the woman
neither don't live in this town that can even guess who he was. But
who's this young feller? Some relative o' hern from somewheres, like
enough--reckon she must 'a' been goin' down to the train to meet him.
Never told nobody, and just like her not to. She sure is close-mouthed.
They're going on over towards her place, seems like," he continued.
"Say, don't she look proud? Seems like she's glad over something. But
why--that's what I want to know--why?"

The two persons thus in the public eye of Spring Valley by this time had
come again to the corner of the courthouse inclosure, and apparently
purposed to pass diagonally through the courthouse yard. Now and again
the young man turned i