t like the dead, hopeless woe in
Mary's voice as she prayed there in the bedroom with Grant that August
night. A terrible half-hour came when Mary and Amos talked with
Margaret. For over their shame at what their son had done, above their
love for him, even beyond their high hope for him, rose their sense of
duty to the child who was coming. For the child they spent the passion
of their shame and love and hope as they pleaded with Margaret for a
child's right to a name. But she had hardened her heart. She shook her
head and would not listen to their pleadings. Then they sent Grant to
her. It is not easy to say which was more dreadful, the impudent smile
which she turned to the parents as she shook her head at them, or the
scornful laugh they heard when Grant sat with her. That was a long and
weary night they spent and the sun rose in the morning under a cloud
that never was lifted from their hearts.

In the six or seven sordid, awful weeks that followed before Kenyon was
born, they turned for comfort and for help to Dr. Nesbit. They made his
plan to save the child's good name, their plan. Of course--the Adamses
were selfish. They felt a blight was on their boy's life. They could not
understand that in Heaven there is neither marriage nor giving in
marriage; that when God sends a soul through the gates of earth it comes
in joy even though we greet it in sorrow. Their gloom should have been
lighted; part of its blackness was their own vain pride in Grant. Yet
they were none the less tender with Margaret, and when she went down
into the valley of the shadow, Mary went with her and stood and
supported the girl in the journey.

When Doctor Nesbit was climbing into the buggy at the gate, Grant,
standing by the hitching-post, said: "Doctor--sometime--when we are
both older--I mean Laura--" He got no further. The Doctor looked at the
boy's ashen face, and knew the cost of the words he was speaking. He
stopped, reached his hand out to Grant and touched his shoulder. "I
think I know, Grant--some day I shall tell her." He got into the buggy,
looked at the lad a moment and said in his high, squeaky voice: "Well,
Grant, boy, you understand after all it's your burden--don't you? Your
mother has saved Margaret's good name. But son--son, don't you let the
folks bear that burden." He paused a moment further and sighed: "Well,
good-by, kid--God help you, and make a man of you," and so turning his
cramping buggy, he drove away in the dus