ughton was saying "Consider the stars."
"If I could only tell her!" he thought.

"If the wrongdoing is behind you," said Mary Houghton, "let it go."

"It won't let me go," he said, with nervous lightness. "Though it's
behind me, all right!"

Which made her say, gently, "Maurice, perhaps I know what troubles you?"
His start made her add, quickly: "Your uncle Henry has never betrayed
your confidence; but ... I guessed, long ago, that something had gone
wrong. I don't know how wrong--"

"Oh, Mrs. Houghton," he said, despairingly, "awfully wrong!
Awfully--awfully wrong!" He put his elbow on his knee, and rested his
chin on his clenched fist; she was silent. Then he said: "You've always
been an angel to me. I am glad you guessed. Because--I don't know what
to do."

"About the woman?"

"No. The boy."

"Oh!" she said; "a _child_!"

Her dismay was like a blow. "But you said you had 'guessed'?"

"I guessed that there was a woman; but I didn't know--" She put her arm
over his shoulders and kissed him. "My poor Maurice!" The tears stood in
her eyes.

"I told you it was 'awful,'" he said, simply; "yes, it is my little boy;
I'm worried to death about him. Lily--that's her name--is perfectly all
right; she means well, and adores him, and all that; but--" Then he told
her what Jacky's mother had been and what she was now; and the
illustrations he gave of Lily's ignorance of ethical standards made Mary
Houghton cringe. "She's ruining the little fellow," he said; "he's not
mean nor a coward--I'll say that for him! But he lies whenever he feels
like it, and honesty only means not getting 'pinched.' She's awfully
ambitious for him; but her idea of success is what she calls 'Society,'
Oh, it's such a relief to speak to you, Mrs. Houghton! I haven't a soul
I can talk to."

"Maurice, can't you get him?" Her voice was shocked.

He almost laughed. "Wild horses wouldn't drag him from Lily!"

She was silent before the complexity of the situation--the furtive
paternity, with its bewildered sense of responsibility, in conflict with
the passion of the dam!

"I have to be so infernally secret," Maurice said. "If it wasn't for
that, I could train him a little, because he's fond of me," he
explained--and for a moment his face relaxed into one of his old
charming smiles. "He really is an awfully fine little beggar. I swear I
believe he's musical! And he's confoundedly clever. Why, he said--" Mrs.
Houghton could have wept with the pit