e for him, that--it distresses me to say so--but I
can see that he will not feel like asking any woman to share such a
burden as he has to carry."

"If he loves any woman," Edith said, "let him ask her! If she turns him
down, it stamps her for a coward!"

"Don't you think I'm right, Maurice?" her father said.

"Yes," Maurice said. "You are right. I've faced that."

Edith sprang to her feet, and stood looking at her father and mother,
her eyes stern with protecting passion. "It seems to me absurd," she
said,--"like standing up so straight you fall over backward!--for
Maurice to feel he can't marry--somebody else, just because he--he did
wrong, ever so many years ago! He's sorry, now. Aren't you sorry,
Maurice?" she said.

His eyes stung;--the simplicity of the word was like a flower tossed
into the black depths of his repentance! "Yes, dear," he said, gently;
"I'm 'sorry.' But no amount of 'sorrow' can alter consequences, Edith."

"Oh," she said, turning to the other two, "don't you want Maurice _ever_
to be happy?"

"I want him to be good," said her mother.

"I can't be happy, Edith," Maurice told her; "don't you see?"

She looked straight in his eyes, her own eyes terror-stricken. ... They
would drive him away from her! "You _shall_ be happy," she said.

They saw only each other, now.

"No," Maurice said; "it's just as your father says; I have no right to
drag any girl into the kind of life I've got to live. I'll have to see
Lily a good deal, so as to keep in with her--and be able to look after
Jacky. Personal happiness is all over for me."

She caught at his arm; "It isn't! Maurice, don't listen to them!" Then
she turned and stood in front of him, as though to put her young breast
between him and that tender, menacing parental love. "Oh, mother--oh,
father! I _do_ love you; I don't want to do anything you don't approve
of;--but Maurice comes first. If he asks me to marry him, I will."

Under his breath Maurice said, "_Edith!_"

"My darling," Henry Houghton said, "consider: people are bound to know
all about this. The publicity will be a very painful embarrassment--"

Edith broke in, "As if that matters!"

"But the serious thing," her father went on, "Is that this woman will be
a millstone around his neck--"

"She shall be around my neck, too!" she said. There was a breathless
moment; then Truth, nobly naked, spoke: "Maurice, duty is the first
thing in the world;--not happiness. If you thought it wa