did son could do. The girl
would grieve; and she would as soon that Spring itself should have its
heart hurt as dear little Ellen. And there would be no future. She would
have no grandchildren. When she died he would be so lonely.... And it
was her own fault. All her life long she had let him see how she wanted
love and how she had been deprived of it by Harry's failure; and so he
had given her all he had, even that which he should have kept for his
own needs. "What can I do to put this right?" she asked herself. "What
can I do?"

She found that his eyes were staring up at her from her lap. "Mother,
what's the matter?"

"The matter?"

"You were looking at me like a judge who's passing sentence."

"Well, perhaps I am," she said wearily. "Every mother is a judge who
sentences the children for the sins of the father."

His face grew dark, as it always did when he thought of his father.
"Well, if you had done that I should have had a pretty bad time."

It occurred to her that there was a way, an easy way, by which she could
free Richard from his excessive love for her. He would not love her any
more if she told him.... "But, oh, I couldn't tell him that," her spirit
groaned. "It is against nature that anyone but me should know of that.
It would spoil it to speak of it." But there was no other way. If she
were to go away from him he would follow her. There was no other way.

She shivered and smiled down on him, into his answering eyes. It was
strange to think that this was the last time they would ever look at
each other quite like that. She prepared to bring herself down like a
hammer on her own delicate reluctances.

"Hush, Richard," she said. "You shouldn't talk like that. Perhaps I
ought to have told you long ago that your father and I made it up before
he died."

He picked himself up and stood looking down on her.

"Yes, the day before he died we made it up," she began, but fell silent
because of the beating of her heart.

Presently he broke out. "What do you mean? Tell me what you mean."

"Why, let's see, it was like this," she continued. "It was in the
afternoon. Half-past two, I think. I was baking a cake for your tea. Of
course that was in the old kitchen, on the other side of the house,
which opened into the farmyard. Well, I looked up and saw your father
standing in the doorway. I knew that meant that something strange was
happening. From his coming at all, for one thing. And because he hadn't
got t