ht about the friend part in mothers. Then, too, I
think an adopted mother has this to her credit--she doesn't dare
presume."

"No, often she bullies. She thinks she paid for the right. After all,
the best any of us can do for a child is to set it free; point out the
channels and keep the lights burning!"

"David, you are wonderful. You should have had children." The tears were
in Doris's eyes.

"Oh! I don't know--I'd have to have too many other things tacked on. All
children are mine now, in a sense."

David pushed the tray away and leaned luxuriously back in his chair.

"Now," he said, with his peculiar smile that few rarely saw, "let's have
it! The skirmish is over."

Then Doris told him--feeling her way as she poured her confession into
the ears of one who trusted her so fully and who asked so little. She
saw his startled glance when she, beginning with Meredith's death,
struck the high note of the real matter. Martin was not resenting her
past reticence, but he was taken off his guard, and that rarely happened
to him.

Once, having controlled his emotions, he was placid enough. He noted the
outstretched hands in Doris's lap and estimated her weariness and her
need of him. After all, those were the big things of the moment. In
Martin's thought any act of Doris's could easily be explained and
righted. He did not interrupt her, he even saw the humour of her account
of the scene with Thornton, years before, when she presented both
children to his horrified eyes. Martin shook with laughter, and that
trivial act did more to strengthen Doris than anything he could have
done. It relieved the tension.

"How did you manage to create the impression, among us all, that these
children are twins?" Martin, seeing that Doris had finished with the
vital matter, turned to details. "I cannot recall that you ever said
so--and there seems to be no reason why they should be twins."

"That's it, David, there never was a reason, really, and I did not
intend, at first, to give the impression--I simply said nothing. Things
like this grow in silence until they are too big to handle. It was the
telling of plain half-truths that did the mischief--and letting the
conclusions of others pass. Of course I did not hesitate with George
Thornton, he mattered; the others did not seem to count--no one but you,
David. I have felt I wronged your faith, somehow."

Martin, at this, began to defend Doris.

"Oh, I don't agree to that. It was ent