There was no word of welcome on the part of either, no hand extended. All I could see, as he stood there momentarily on the step, was the set face, the dark hollows beneath his eyes, the utter fatigue in his attitude. He stood with his hand on the door jamb, bracing himself by it. So he must have stood long years before when he came to seek my mother. That was my thought. He did not sit down; but I--I had to; I had not strength left to stand. "I 'm going to ask you a few questions." "Yes." My tongue was dry; my lips parched. It was with difficulty I could articulate. "What did you think I promised you, even if without words, that last time I saw you in camp?" "All." "What did you promise me when you looked into my eyes, there on the shore of the cove?" "All." I had no other word at my command. "And what did 'all' mean to you?" I could not answer. "Did it mean that you were to be my wife, that I was to be your husband?" "I thought so." "And you came to think otherwise--" "How could it be, oh, how could it be?" I cried out wildly, the dumb misery finding expression at last. "How could it be when you are my mother's husband--" "Stop! Not here and now. I will not hear that--not here, where I found her dead in this basement; not now, when I have come to find her child. Listen to me. Answer me, as if before the judgment seat of your truest womanhood and our common humanity. Is she a wife who never loves the man who loves her, and is married to her in the law? Answer me." "No." "Is he a husband who never receives the pledge of love from the woman he loves, and to whom he is married in the law? Answer me again." "No." "Can words merely, the 'I promise', the 'I take', make marriage in its truest sense? Tell me." "No." "Was the woman who never loved me, my wife in any true sense for all the spoken words?" "No," I answered again, but my voice faltered. "Was the man who loved her, her husband simply by reason of those few spoken words?" "No--but--" "Yes, I know what you would say; the words, at least, were spoken that made us before the world man and wife in the law--but how about the 'before God'?" I could not answer. The man who was cross-questioning me was trying to get at the truth as I saw it. "The law can be put aside, and I put it aside; I was divorced from her. But what difference, except to you, does that make? Marcia Farrell, I was never your mother's husband. Had I been, had I taken her once in my arms as wife, can you think for one moment that I would have stayed in the manor, continued in your presence--watching, waiting, longing for some sign of love for me on your part? You cannot think it--it is not possible." His voice shook with passion, with indignation. He bent to me.