"Lots of kinks in life. There is only one law that I shall lay down for you, Arty. You must give up all idea of marrying Elsa Chetwood." "It will be easy to obey that. Are you playing with me, Paul?" "Playing?" echoed Warrington. "Yes. Do you mean to sit there and tell me that you don't know why I shall never marry her?" "Arty, I don't understand what you're talking about." Arthur read the truth in his brother's eyes. He smiled weakly, the anger gone. "Same old blind duffer you always were. I wrote an answer to her letter. In that letter I told her . . . the truth." "You did that?" "I am your brother, Paul. I couldn't be a cad as well as a thief. Yes, I told her. I told her more, what you never knew. I let Craig believe that I was you, Paul. I wore your clothes, your scarf-pins, your hats. In that I was a black villain. God! What a hell I lived in. . . . Ah, mother!" Arthur dropped his head upon his arms again. "Paul, my son!" It was Warrington's chair that toppled over. Framed in the portieres stood his mother, white-haired, pale but as beautiful as of old. "I am sorry. I had hoped to get away without your knowing." "Why?" "Oh, because there wasn't any use of my coming at all. I'd passed out of your life, and I should have stayed out. Don't worry. I've got everything mapped out. There's a train at midnight." Arthur stood up. "Mother, I am the guilty man. I was the thief. All these years I've let you believe that Paul had taken the money. . . ." "Yes, yes!" she interrupted, never taking her eyes off this other son. "I heard everything behind these curtains. You were going away, Paul, without seeing me?" "What was the use of stirring up old matters? Of bringing confusion into this house?" He did not look at her. He could not tell her that he now knew what had drawn him hither, that all along he had deceived himself. "Paul, my son, I have been a wicked woman." "Why, mother, you mustn't talk like that!" "Wicked! My son, my silent, kindly, chivalric boy, will you forgive your mother? Your unnatural mother?" He caught her before her knees touched the floor; and, ah! how hungrily her arms wound about him. [Illustration: He That Was Dead.] "What's the use of lying?" he cried brokenly. "My mother! I wanted to hear your voice and feel your arms. You don't know how I have always loved you. It was a long time, a very long time. Perhaps I was to be blamed. I was proud, and kept away from you. Don't cry. There, there! I can go away now, happy." Over his mother's shoulders, now moving with silent stabbing sobs, he held out his hand to his brother. Presently, above the two bowed heads, Warrington's own rose, transfigured with happiness. The hall-door opened and closed, but none of them regarded it. By and by the mother stood away, but within arm's length. "How big and strong you have grown, Paul." "In heart, too, mother," added Arthur. "Old Galahad!"