And now? The mother realised that she must make haste to transform her feeling towards Oliver Boringdon into something akin to liking. As a beginning she now went up to Lucy's room, her heart yearning over the girl, but with no words prepared. Perhaps now her child would come back to her--the last year had been a long, sad year to Mrs. Kemp. Lucy was sitting idly by the rosewood davenport. There were traces of tears on her face. "Mother!" she said, "Oh, mother!" Then she took Mrs. Kemp's hand and laid her cheek against it. In a very different tone she added, "I felt rather ashamed at not telling you yesterday. Barbara would not have minded your knowing, but Lord Bosworth was anxious that no one should be told." "Is that why you are crying?" asked Mrs. Kemp in a low voice. "No, no, of course not! I am afraid--Oh! mother! do you think it will make _him_ very unhappy?" "For a little while," said Mrs. Kemp drily, "he will fancy himself so, and then he will begin to wonder whether, after all, she was quite worthy of him!" "Don't say that--don't think so unkindly of him!" Lucy stood up, she put her hand through her mother's arm, "Do you think people ever leave off caring, when they have once cared--so much?" "Lucy," said Mrs. Kemp, "have you ever wondered why your father and I married so late? You know we were engaged--first--when I was only nineteen----" "Because you were too poor!" cried Lucy quickly, "because father was in India!" and then, as her mother looked at her quite silently, the girl added, with a kind of cry, "Oh! mother! what do you mean?" "I mean,--I do not think that now he would be unwilling that you should know, my darling,--that a woman came between us. Someone not so good, not so innocent as Barbara Rebell,--for I do think that in this matter she was quite innocent, Lucy." "But father always liked you best, mother? How could he help it?" "No," said Mrs. Kemp, "there was a time when he did not like me best. There were years when he loved the other woman, and I was--well, horribly unhappy. And yet, you see, he came back to me,--I fought through,--and you, my dear one, will fight through, please God, to be as happy a woman as your mother has been ever since you have known her." THE END. Transcriber Notes: Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_. Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS. Throughout the document, the oe ligature was replaced with "oe". Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the speakers. Those words were retained as-is. The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate. Thus the page number of the illustration might not match the page number in the List of Illustrations, and the order of illustrations may not be the same in the List of Illustrations and in the book.