insisted. "Oh, but you must. You know that yourself. You'll feel better,
too, when you've had a bath. You can't take one here, because Mrs. Maggs
hasn't put the towels out. Cousin Amy will attend to that when she comes
down."

These and similar maternal counsels having been given and received, she
led the way into the hall, only to pause again at the foot of the
stairs. "I shall go out now to send my cablegram to mamma. The sooner I
get it off the better it will be, so that they can cross from Havre to
Southampton to-night. I've got it all thought out and condensed, and I
shall write it in French so as to keep it from the people in our own
office here. I suppose that everything will be in the papers by the
afternoon, and we shall have to accept the publicity." Seeing the pain
in his face, she took the opportunity to say: "Oh, we can do that well
enough, Thor dear. We mustn't be afraid of it. We mustn't flinch at
anything. Whatever has to come out will get its significance only from
the way we bear it; and we can bear it well."

Having advanced a few steps up the stairs, she turned again on the first
landing, speaking down toward him as he mounted. "If possible, I should
like to tell Rosie myself. It will be a shock to her, of course; but I
want to be with her when she has to meet it. Don't you think I ought to
be?" On his expressing some form of mute agreement, she continued:
"Then, if you approve, I shall telephone to Jim Breen, asking him to
bring her to see me. Rosie will guess, by my sending for her, that
something strange has happened. I shall word my message to her in that
way."

Her last appeal was made to him as she stood with one hand on the knob
of the door beyond which Claude was lying. "Thor dear, I hope you get at
the truth of the things Uncle Sim and Dr. Hilary have been saying.
There's a great message to you there. You _are_ on the side of the good
things, you know. You always have been, and always will be."

He shook his head. "It's too late to say that to me now."

"Oh no, it isn't! And what's also not too late to say is that you
mustn't let yourself be ridden by remorse." His haggard eyes seeming to
ask her how he could help it, she continued: "Remorse is one of the most
futile things we know anything about. It can't undo the past, while it
destroys the present and poisons the future."

He was almost indignant. "But when you've--?"

"When you've given way as you say you gave way last night? You