“I urged her to,” Master Oldesworth continued, “but, with the weakness of her sex, before six months were out she had forgot his unworthiness and baseness. She remembered only that she loved him and she blamed herself that she had left him; indeed, she would have returned if she had been assured he would receive her back. But I forbade her hold communication with him while she dwelt beneath my roof, and he himself did not care to seek her out, though she long looked for him. When he did not come she was the more convinced the fault was hers, and, since she had robbed her son of his father, as she phrased it, she would at least give him a true and noble conception of that father to cherish. Perhaps she held it compensation for the wrong she thought she had worked Alan Gwyeth that she sketched him unto you a paragon of all virtues. And partly for that he was dead to her, and partly for that she would not have the shame of her flight, as she called her most happy deliverance, be known to you, she gave him out to you as dead. ’Twas ill done, but I suffered her to rule you as she would; I had ever a weak fondness for her.” With a sudden jarring noise Hugh thrust back his chair and stumbling to the window stood so Master Oldesworth could not see his face. His poor mother, his poor mother! Because he knew in his heart she had done ill to him with her weak deceptions he loved her and pitied her all the more, and his eyes smarted with repressed tears that he could not see her nor tell her that it all mattered little, the agony this disillusionment was costing him; he knew she had meant it kindly and he thanked her for it. He was still staring out between the elms at the sloping lawn, where, he remembered as if it had happened years back, he had played that very morning like a boy, when his grandfather’s dry tones reached him: “This man would seem to have roistered through life without thought of her. Of late I did not know myself whether he were dead or living, but it seems he is sailing on the high waves of royal favor and has found himself fitting comradeship among the profligates and traitors of King Charles’s camp.” Hugh swept his hand across his eyes and faced about squarely. His father a profligate who had abandoned his mother! Who dared say it or believe it? His mother’s face as she had looked before she died came back to him. A true-hearted gentleman and a gallant soldier, like his father,—like his father. “And you never suspected anything of the truth ere this?” Master Oldesworth pursued. “Once, months back, Aunt Delia told me a story somewhat like this,” Hugh’s voice came low but so firm it surprised him, “but I held it only some of her spitefulness and I did not believe it.” Master Oldesworth looked up with a curious expression. “Do you believe it now?” he asked. “No,” Hugh answered honestly, then quickly added, “I crave your pardon, sir, but I cannot believe it.”