"This is what it means!" said Aurora Lane, suddenly drawing Anne to her closely, after her one swift glance. "My boy's in jail. This--this man--Judge Henderson--is his father. He says he's hired to murder him--and he's our child." "I didn't know!" broke out Judge Henderson, now facing both his hearers. "I never knew! You said he was dead--you told me so. It's all half a lifetime ago. I've had nothing to do with you, nor you with me, since we broke off more than twenty years ago. That was as you wished. God! I was only a man. You _said_ the child died." "Yes," said Aurora Lane, turning to Anne; "that's true--I did. I told that one lie to protect the boy. I sent him away when he was a baby to protect him. I said he was dead--to protect him--to keep him from ever knowing. But you know--you saw him--you _felt_ it--you must have known, yesterday." She confronted the trembling man once more. "Yesterday?" said Anne Oglesby. "Yes. There was another trial then--and Judge Henderson prosecuted then also!" She turned again to him for his answer. "I dropped the case." "You dropped it because you were paid to drop it! You traded another man out of his own life's ambition--a better man than you are--that's what you did when you dropped the case. There's nothing more to trade--we've nothing more to pay--but how can you prosecute him--now--when his very life's at stake--when he's charged with murder? The punishment's death! You'd send him to the gallows now--my boy--and yours? You didn't know him then! Is it likely? Don't lie about it--if you didn't know him, _why_ didn't you? Were you so busy looking at your own picture on the wall--so wrapped up in your own ambitions, that you couldn't see anything else? Couldn't you see your own flesh and blood--and mine? What's twenty years? Haven't I lived them, and wouldn't I know him--didn't I--when I saw him? You Judas!" Motionless, she stood looking at the speechless man before her, until she felt the closer drawing to her of the tall young beauty at her side. "And you're Anne?" she said, turning to the girl, her own large dark eyes now soft. "I know. He loves you, Don. Has he said good-by to you? Has he said he wasn't worthy of you, because he had--no father? _This_ is his father--Don's father--Judge William Henderson. He'll not deny it. I told Don he mustn't think of you--of all women in the world--just because you are so close to Judge Henderson--Don's father. "Now you see why I told my boy that lie--I didn't want him ever to know his father--yes, I'd told him his father was dead. And I don't want to seem a worse liar to my own boy--I've been bad enough, the way it is." She felt Anne Oglesby's arm draw her closer yet, felt the soft warm body of the girl against her own. "I make only trouble," said Aurora, murmuring. "And you--you're so beautiful. I don't blame him." "I love him, too!" said Anne Oglesby steadily. "I'm not going to give him up." Aurora Lane's tears came then.