"I'm perfectly well. But I'm going to speak. Doctor Lavendar will tell you I have a right to speak! Tell him so, Doctor Lavendar." "She has the right to speak," the old man said. "You hear that?" said the mother. "He says I have a right to you!" "I didn't say that," said Doctor Lavendar. "Mary," her husband protested, "I will not allow"--but she did not hear him: "Miss Lydia sha'n't have you any longer. You are _mine_, Johnny--_mine_. I want you, and I'm going to have you!" John Smith's face went white; he put his cigar down on the mantelpiece, went across the long room, closed the door into the hall, then came back and looked at his mother. No one spoke. Doctor Lavendar had bent his head and shut his eyes; he would not watch the three struggling souls before him. Johnny slowly turned his eyes toward Mr. Robertson. "And you--?" "Yes," his father said. "John, you'll make the best of us, won't you?" Silence tingled between them. Then, unsteadily, and looking always at his father, John began to speak. "Of course it makes no difference to me. Aunt Lydia and I have our own life. But--I'm sorry, sir." He put his shaking hands into his pockets. "You and Mrs. Robertson--" "Oh, say 'mother'! Say 'mother'!" she cried out. "--have been very kind to me, always,"--he paused, in a sudden, realizing adjustment: their "kindness," then, had not been the flattery he had supposed? It was just--love? "Awfully kind," he said, huskily. "Once I did wonder . . . then I thought it couldn't be, because--because, you see, I've always liked you, sir," he ended, awkwardly. Carl Robertson was dumb. "I've told you," his mother said, trembling--her fingers, catching at the sheet of blotting paper on desk, tore off a scrap of it, rolled it, twisted it, then pull off another scrap--"I've told you, because you are to come to us. You are to take our name--your name." She paused, swallowing hard, and struggling to keep the tears back. "You are _ours_, not hers. People thought you were hers, and it just about killed me." Instantly the blood rushed into John Smith's face; his eyes blazed. "What!" he stammered; "what! You knew that?" . . . His upper lip slowly lifted, and Doctor Lavendar saw his set teeth. "You _knew_ that some damned fools thought _that_, of my aunt Lydia? Are you my mother, and yet you could allow another woman-- My God!" he said, softly. She did not realize what she had done; she began to reassure him frantically. "No one shall ever know! No one will ever guess--" Doctor Lavendar shook his head. "Mary," he warned her, "we must be known, even as also we know, before we enter the Kingdom of Heaven." They did not listen to him. "You mean," John said, "that you won't let it be known that you are--my mother?" "No, never! never! It couldn't be known--I promise you." "Thank you," said John Smith, sardonically,--and Doctor Lavendar held up protesting hands. But no one looked at him.