“If your silence means refusal, my dear, I think you ought to realize the responsibility you assume.” Mrs. Peyton’s voice had acquired an edge of righteous asperity. “If Denis has a fault it is that he is too gentle, too yielding, too readily influenced by those he cares for. Your influence is paramount with him now--but if you turn from him just when he needs your help, who can say what the result will be?” The argument, though impressively delivered, was hardly of a nature to carry conviction to its hearer; but it was perhaps for that very reason that she suddenly and unexpectedly replied to it by sinking back into her seat with a burst of tears. To Mrs. Peyton, however, tears were the signal of surrender, and, at Kate’s side in an instant she hastened to temper her triumph with magnanimity. “Don’t think I don’t feel with you; but we must both forget ourselves for our boy’s sake. I told him I should come back with your promise.” The arm she had slipped about Kate’s shoulder fell back with the girl’s start. Kate had seen in a flash what capital would be made of her emotion. “No, no, you misunderstand me. I can make no promise,” she declared. The older lady sat a moment irresolute; then she restored her arm to the shoulder from which it had been so abruptly displaced. “My dear child,” she said, in a tone of tender confidence, “if I have misunderstood you, ought you not to enlighten me? You asked me just now if Denis had given me your reason for this strange postponement. He gave me one reason, but it seems hardly sufficient to explain your conduct. If there is any other,--and I know you well enough to feel sure there is,--will you not trust me with it? If my boy has been unhappy enough to displease you, will you not give his mother the chance to plead his cause? Remember, no one should be condemned unheard. As Denis’s mother, I have the right to ask for your reason.” “My reason? My reason?” Kate stammered, panting with the exhaustion of the struggle. Oh, if only Mrs. Peyton would release her! “If you have the right to know it, why doesn’t he tell you?” she cried. Mrs. Peyton stood up, quivering. “I will go home and ask him,” she said. “I will tell him he had your permission to speak.” She moved toward the door, with the nervous haste of a person unaccustomed to decisive action. But Kate sprang before her. “No, no; don’t ask him! I implore you not to ask him,” she cried. Mrs. Peyton turned on her with sudden authority of voice and gesture. “Do I understand you?” she said. “You admit that you have a reason for putting off your marriage, and yet you forbid me--me, Denis’s mother--to ask him what it is? My poor child, I needn’t ask, for I know already. If he has offended you, and you refuse him the chance to defend himself, I needn’t look farther for your reason: it is simply that you have ceased to love him.” Kate fell back from the door which she had instinctively barricaded.