rself from him, from the situation.

"That was good of you," said Richard.

"And now"--the whistling tone came back in his speech--"I want to tell
mother!"

"You can't do that. She isn't in."

"What, weren't you all out together? Didn't she come home with you?"

"No."

"Then, love o' goodness, where is she at this time of night?"

"Down on the marshes," said Richard casually. "She had a headache. She
thought a walk in the night air would do her good." Slowly and
deliberately he smoothed out his gauntlets and laid them down on the
table.

"Oh," murmured Roger, and was silent until Richard put out his hand and
straightened the gloves, making them lie parallel with the grain of the
wood. Then suddenly he ran round the table and looked up into his
brother's face. "Here! What's the matter with mother?"

"Nothing! Nothing!" exclaimed Richard in exasperation. "She's down on
the marshes, having a walk."

"Oh, but you can't take me in that way!" the pallid creature cried,
wringing his hands. "I can see you're frightened about mother!"

"I'm not," said Richard vehemently.

"You needn't try to fool me. I'm stupid about everything else, but not
about mother! And I could always feel what was going on between you two.
Many's the time I've had to leave the room because you two were loving
each other so and I felt out of it. And now I know you're frightened
about her! You are! You are!"

"I'm not!" shouted Richard.

Roger shrank back towards Poppy, who seemed to like the loud noise, and
had raised eyes skimmed of their sullenness by delight. "If you'd got
Jesus," he said tartly, "you'd learn to be gentle. Like He was." He
recovered confidence by squeezing Poppy's hand, which she tendered him
deceitfully, looking at Richard the while as if she were waiting for
orders. "Now you'd better tell me what it is about mother that's making
you frightened. She'd not be pleased, would she, if she came in and
found you treating me like this, as if I hadn't a right to know anything
about her, and me her own son just as much as you are?"

That argument moved Richard, Ellen could see. He looked down at his
white knuckles and unclenched his hands. "It's really nothing," he told
Roger in that false, kind voice. "I went upstairs after dinner to look
over some papers for mother and left her and Ellen down here. When I
came back Ellen told me she'd gone out for a walk on the marshes. It
struck me as rather an odd thing for her to do at t