n at the open country. The children, with their needs, their
ailments, their future careers, could not but be the natural theme
between them. It lasted while they passed Nuneaton, Rugby, and Stafford,
and were well on their way to London. Suddenly he risked a question:

"Do they--understand?"

She was plainly agitated that he should disturb the ashes that buried
their past. Her eyes shot him one piteous, appealing glance, after which
they returned to the passing landscape. "Tom understands," she said, at
last. "Chippie takes it for granted."

"Takes it for granted--how?"

"Just as they both did--till Tom began to get a little more experience.
It seemed to them quite the ordinary thing to have"--she hesitated and
colored--"to have two fathers."

He winced, but risked another question:

"What makes you think that Tom's discovered it to be unusual?"

"Because he's said so."

"In what way? Do you mind telling me?"

"I'd rather _not_ tell you."

"But if I insist?"

"You'll insist at the risk of having your feelings hurt."

"Oh, that!" A shrug of his shoulders and a wry smile expressed his
indifference to such a result. "Did he ask you anything?"

She nodded, without turning from the window.

"Won't you tell me what it was? It would help me in my future dealing
with the boy."

She continued to gaze out at the park-like fields, from which the mists
had risen. "He asked me if you had done anything bad."

"And you told him--?"

"I told him that I didn't understand--that perhaps I'd never
understood."

"Thank you for putting it like that. But you did understand, you
know--perfectly. You mustn't have it on your conscience that--"

"Oh, we can't help the things we've got on our consciences. There's no
way of shuffling away from them."

He allowed some minutes to pass before saying gently: "You're happy?"

She spoke while watching a flock of sheep trotting clumsily up a
hillside from the noise of the train. "And you?"

"Oh, I'm as happy as--well, as I deserve to be. I'm not _un_happy." A
pause gave emphasis to his question when he said, almost repeating her
tone: "And you?"

"I suppose I ought to say the same." A dozen or twenty rooks alighting
on an elm engaged her attention before she added: "I've no _right_ to be
unhappy."

"One can be unhappy without a right."

"Yes; but one forfeits sympathy."

"Do you need sympathy?"

She answered hurriedly: "No, not at all."

"I do."

His words were so