Ewing passed a hand over his face, as if to awaken himself from some trance in which he had moved. "Sit down there." He felt for a chair now and sank awkwardly into it, repeating dazedly: "My mother was your mother--" He could get no meaning from the words. The other answered sharply: "Your mother married my father. She left him for your father when I was a baby. Do you understand that? Mrs. Laithe knew it. He knew it--" He pointed toward the limp but breathing figure in the chair--"and she was afraid he would tell you." He tried to take it in. "My mother--his wife? Ah--you--you are my brother." "That's beside the point; but if it means anything to you, listen to me--try to understand." Again and again he told the thing point by point, as simply as he could, while his listener stared curiously at him. The figure in the chair stirred, the head rolled, the breathing became quieter and more even, but neither gave any heed to this. At last the incredible thing began to shape itself in Ewing's mind, but it was not until the very last, and then it came as a sudden blinding illumination. The man in the chair drew a long, shuddering breath and opened his eyes on them. Ewing at the same moment caught the full force of the little man's deceit. He had felt no anger toward Teevan before, but now rage grew within him as he remembered what the woman had suffered. He sprang toward Teevan, feeling no longer a specific desire to kill, but only a mad impulse to beat down and blindly destroy. "You lied about her!" he cried, towering above the little man with clenched, threatening fists. If Teevan had retorted, had raised a hand, or betrayed anything but abject fear, shrinking in his chair, turning eyes of appeal to his son, Ewing would have vented his rage. But this died into mere loathing as he looked. Teevan was near to whimpering, in his fear. Ewing turned away with a gesture of repulsion. "That's best, after all," remarked the son coolly. "Doubtless he deserves kicking more than any unkicked man alive, but you'll be glad you didn't do it." Ewing shot another look at Teevan, and then said, almost as if to himself. "How wise my mother was!" He turned again to the little man with a sudden blaze of scorn. "And you believed I could think less of her for leaving you--leaving you for a _man_!" Teevan merely closed his eyes and cautiously raised a hand to his neck. "You'll be glad you let him off," repeated the son, "and so will she. She wouldn't have you----" "Ah--she!" It was a cry of remembrance. "Why--she's--" He broke off, glowing with a strange illumination. "Why, I left her----" A moment longer he stood, like a sleeper wakened, then rushed from the room. CHAPTER XXXII THE TURNING OF COONEY