"Yes. Nearly thirty years ago she left me--without a farewell until too late, with no human being in all the world to love, none to care for me." "So Rita told me." The words were little more than a whisper. "I did not curse her; I disowned her and sought to forget. I could not. Then I began to cry out for her in the night--in my loneliness--do you know what that word means?" "Do I know?" The pathos in the echo was beyond description. "And then I began a search that ended only when ten years had buried all hopes. No tidings, no word after her first letter ever reached me. She is dead, I believe; but recently some of the mystery has been untangled. I begin to know, to believe that there has been an awful error somewhere. She did come back. Her child was born and Rita cared for it. As God is my judge, I believe that you are that child! Tell me, do you remember, have you any knowledge that will help me to unravel this tangled----" "You are simply mistaken, general," said the young man, without moving other than to fold his arms and sink back into his chair. "I am not the son of Marion Evan." Speechless for a moment, the general gazed upon his companion. "I thought I was," continued Gerald; "I hoped I was. My God! My God! I tried to be! I have exhausted almost life itself to make the truth a lie, and the lie a truth! I have struggled with this secret here for twenty years or more; I have studied every phase of life; I well-nigh broke Rita's heart. Poor honest Rita! "She told me what they claimed--she was too honest to conceal that--and what she believed; she was too human to conceal that; and then left me to judge. The woman they would have me own as my mother left me, a lonely babe, to the care of strangers; to grow up ill-taught, unguided, frail and haunted with a sickening fear. She has left me twenty-seven years. Rita stayed. If I were sick, Rita was by me. If I was crazed, Rita was there to calm. Sleepless by night, sleepless by day, she loved and comforted and blessed me." He had risen in his growing excitement. "I ask you, General, who have known life better than I, which of the two was my mother? Let me answer; you will not. The woman of thirty years ago is nothing to me; she was once. That has passed. When Rita lay dead in her coffin I kissed her lips at last and called her mother. I would have killed myself afterward--life seemed useless--but not so now. It may be a terrible thing to be Rita's son; I suppose it is, but as before God, I thank Him that I have come to believe that there are no ties of blood between me and the woman who was false to both father and child, and in all probability deserted her husband."