den,
realizing adjustment: their "kindness," then, had not been the
flattery he had supposed? It was just--love? "Awfully kind," he said,
huskily. "Once I did wonder . . . then I thought it couldn't be,
because--because, you see, I've always liked you, sir," he ended,
awkwardly.

Carl Robertson was dumb.

"I've told you," his mother said, trembling--her fingers, catching at
the sheet of blotting paper on desk, tore off a scrap of it, rolled it,
twisted it, then pull off another scrap--"I've told you, because you are
to come to us. You are to take our name--your name." She paused,
swallowing hard, and struggling to keep the tears back. "You are _ours_,
not hers. People thought you were hers, and it just about killed me."

Instantly the blood rushed into John Smith's face; his eyes blazed.
"What!" he stammered; "what! You knew that?" . . . His upper lip slowly
lifted, and Doctor Lavendar saw his set teeth. "You _knew_ that some
damned fools thought _that_, of my aunt Lydia? Are you my mother, and
yet you could allow another woman-- My God!" he said, softly.

She did not realize what she had done; she began to reassure him
frantically.

"No one shall ever know! No one will ever guess--"

Doctor Lavendar shook his head. "Mary," he warned her, "we must be
known, even as also we know, before we enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

They did not listen to him.

"You mean," John said, "that you won't let it be known that you are--my
mother?"

"No, never! never! It couldn't be known--I promise you."

"Thank you," said John Smith, sardonically,--and Doctor Lavendar held up
protesting hands. But no one looked at him.

"It would only be supposed," Carl said, "that, being childless people,
we would make you our son. Nothing, as your mother says, would need be
known."

"How could you 'make me your son' and not have it known?"

"I mean by law," his father explained.

"There was a 'law' that made me your son twenty-three years ago. That's
the only law that counts. You broke it when I was born. Can I be born
again?"

"Yes," said Doctor Lavendar.

"You deserted me," Johnny said, "and Aunt Lydia took me. Shall I be like
you, and desert her? Little Aunt Lydia!" He gave a furious sob. "I'm not
_your_ sort!" he said. The words were like a blow in Mary's face.

"Doctor Lavendar, tell him--tell him, 'honor thy father and thy
mother'!"

"'Honor'?" her son said. "Did I understand you to use the word
'_honor_'?"

Again Doctor