"For me, too; and if you don't object I would like you to know why it means so much to me. You see I am anticipating the personal questions." "I want to know--all that I may." "It is your right, now that I am in your home. Shall I find you in the office this evening?" "Yes; but rather late. Shall we say ten? I shall not be at home for porridge." "Any time will do." We rode out into the open, where the horses cantered quickly along the highroad to Farmeress Boucher's. There I dismounted to visit her gardens and bee-hives and share her enthusiasm over the new industry. We gave our horses the rein on the homeward way and rode in silence, except for one remark from Mr. Ewart. "We have not been over the roads, and Cale will be disappointed. We will go another time." "That will do just as well; I only want to be able to mark the progress in September when we return from camp." It was supper time when we reached the manor, but Mr. Ewart did not stay for any. He was off again--"on business" he said. XXVI "What shall I tell him? How shall I tell him? Shall what I tell him be all, or garbled? Is there any need to mention my mother? Shall I confess to non-knowledge of my father's name? What is it, after all, to him, who and what they were? It is I, Marcia Farrell, in whom his interest centres." I thought hard and thought long when I found myself alone after nine in my room. I came at last to the conclusion that there was no need to bring in my mother's name into anything I might have to say to him--not yet. I regretted that he was not present that evening when Cale told the terrible story of her short life. It would have been all sufficient for me to say to him after that, "I am her daughter." Only once, on the occasion of making myself known, had I mentioned her to Cale; not once referred to her, or her desperate course since that narration. And Cale, moreover, had sealed our lips--the four of us. I had no wish to speak of what was so long past. But, sometime, I intended to ask Cale if George Jackson ever obtained a divorce from my mother, and when. In a way, what people are apt to consider a birthright depended on his answer. Again and again during that hour of concentrated thought, there surged up into consciousness, like a repeating wave of undertone, the realization that all that belonged to a quarter of a century ago, all, all past; done with; their accounts settled. They were forgotten, mostly, by everyone; forgiven, perhaps, by the few, including Cale. Why should what my mother did, or did not do, figure as a factor in my present and future life? I determined to take my stand with Mr. Ewart on this, and this alone.