"I couldn't have done it alone," said Aurora Lane, slowly. Mechanically she smoothed down the folds of her gown in her lap as she spoke. "I have told you you had two mothers, if no father," said she at last, suddenly. "That's almost true. You don't know how much you owe to Miss Julia. She helped me put you through school! It was her little salary and my little earnings--well, they have proved enough." "Go on!" said he, bitterly. "Tell me more! Humiliate me all you can! Tell me more of what I ought to know. Good God!" He squared his shoulders as if to throw off some weight which he felt upon them. His mother looked at him in silence for some time. "Shall I tell you all about it, Don?" she said. "All that I may?" He nodded, frowning. "Let's have it over and done with." "When I came here I was young," said Aurora Lane, slowly, after a long time. "Julia was young, too, just a girl. We both had to make our way. Then--then--it happened." "You didn't love me, Mother? You hated me?" "Oh, yes, I loved you--you don't know what you say--you don't know how I loved you. But everything was very hard and cruel.... Well, one night I had made up my mind what I must do.... "I washed you all clean that night. I dressed you the best I could--I didn't have much for you. But you were a sweet baby, and strong. I was kissing you and saying good-by to you then, when Miss Julia came in, right at the door." [Illustration: "I was kissing you and saying good-bye ... when Miss Julia came in--"] "You were going to put me in a home--in some institution?" "No!" She spoke now in short, quick, sobbing breaths.... "Don, do you know the little stream that runs through the edge of the town? Do you know the deep pool beneath the bridge where the water turns around? Well, I had washed you and dressed you.... I was going to put you _there_.... It was then that Julia came." He turned upon her a face which it seemed to her never again could be happy and free from care. "I didn't know all this, Mother," said he, quietly, whitely. "I ask your pardon. I ask you to forgive me." "No, I have told you I wanted to spare you all this--I wanted that door to remain closed forever. But now it is open--you have opened it. I will have to tell you what there is behind." It seemed many moments before she could summon self-control to go on. "...So we two sat here in this little room, Julia and I. You were in my lap, holding up your hands and kicking up your feet, and we two wept over you--we prayed over you, too--she, that little crippled girl, hopeless, who could never have a boy of her own! I told her what I was going to do with you. She fought me and took you away from me.... And she saved you ... and she saved me.