And--whose is he--may I ask?"

There was a tenseness in the question. Now that he saw the gravity of the
confession Ledyard wished beyond all else to cut quick and deep and then
bind up the wound.

"He is the child of--my husband, and--another woman."

In the hush that followed, Dick's fiddle, running now through a delicious
strain of melody, seemed like a current bearing them on.

"Perhaps you had better--tell me," Ledyard was saying, and his words
blended strangely with the tune. "Yes, I am sure you ought to tell me."

Helen Travers, sitting in her low wicker chair, did not move. Her
delicate face was resting on the tips of her clasped hands, and her long,
loose, white gown seemed to gather and hold the red glow of the fire.

"I suppose I have done Dick a bitter wrong, but at first, you know, even
you thought he could not live and so it would not have mattered, and then
I--I learned to love the helpless little chap as women of my sort do who
have to make their own lives as best they may. He clung to me so
desparately, and, you see, as he grew older I either had to accept his
belief in me or--or--take his father from him. They were such close
friends, Dick's father and he! And now--I must lay everything low, and I
am wondering what will come of it all. He is such a strange fellow; our
life apart has left him--well, so different! How will he take it?"

Whatever her own personal sorrow was, Helen Travers made no moan, exacted
no sympathy. She had come alone to the parting of the ways, and she had
thought only for the boy whom she had mothered tenderly and successfully.
Ledyard did not interrupt the gentle flow of her thoughts. There was
time; he would not startle or hurry her, although her first statement had
shocked and surprised him beyond measure.

"I've always thought of myself as like one of those poor Asiatic
hornbills," she was saying. "It seems to me that all my life long some
one has walled me up in a nice, safe nest and fed me through my longings
and desires. I cannot get to life first hand. I'm not stupid exactly, but
I am terribly limited." Helen paused, then went on more rapidly: "First
it was my father. He and I travelled after mother's death continually,
and alone. He educated me and interpreted life for me; he was a man of
the world, I suppose, but he managed to keep me most unworldly wise. Of
course I knew, abstractly, the lights and shadows; but I wonder if you
will believe me when I tell you tha