his lap now no less an authority than "Chitty on Pleadings."
He had sat there for some moments--and he had not seen a word on all the
page.

CHAPTER V

CLOSED DOORS

By the time Don Lane had reached his mother's house he partially had
pulled himself together, but his face was still pale and sullen, not yet
recovered from the late encounter.

He cast himself down in a chair, his chin in his hand, looking
everywhere but at his mother. His wounds, poor lad, were of the soul,
slow to heal. The white-faced woman who sat looking at him had also her
wounds, scarred though they were, these years. Her features seemed
sharpened, her eyes larger for the dark shadows now about them. But she
was first to speak.

"Wasn't it enough, Don," said she--"didn't I have enough without all
this? And on the very day I have looked forward to so long--so long! You
don't know how I have worked and waited for this very day. Why, it's the
first time I've ever seen you, since you were a baby. You're a stranger
to me--I don't know you yet. And then all this comes--now, on my one
happy day."

"Well, how about it, then?" he demanded brusquely. "You know what
they've been saying--I couldn't let it go. I _had_ to fight!"

"Yes, yes, you have--and in a few hours you've undone twenty years of
work for me. The sleeping dogs were lying. Why waken them this late?"

"_Who was my father?_" demanded the young man, now, sternly. "Come, it's
time for me to know. I couldn't help loving you--no one could. But--him!
Tell me--was it that man who defended me? Is my name Don Brooks?"

She made him no answer, though her throat throbbed and she half started
as though at a blow.

"Oh, no, oh, no! What am I saying! Of course you understand, mother," he
went on after a long, long silence, "I don't believe anything of this,
not even what you have said to me about my being--well, _filius
nullius_. There was a quick divorce--a hidden decree--you separated, you
two--he was poor--that often happens. Women never like to talk about it.
I can't blame you for calling me 'nobody's son,' for that sort of thing
does happen--secret and suppressed divorces, you know. But as to that
other----"

For a long time Aurora Lane sat facing a temptation to accept this
loophole of escape which thus crudely her boy offered her--escape from
the bitter truth. He would fight! He--and Hod Brooks--those two might
defy all the town--might cow them all to silence even now. But--once