"My dream! My dream! First the doctor; then my husband's son. The past is returning." Alice covered her face with her hands to hide the tears. "Nay, nay," said her husband. "Keep quiet--keep quiet." She sank back on the couch, and lay still, with closed eyes and pale face. Molly felt her heart. "It is beating too fast," she said. "Let her be still awhile." Thus the evening, which began with an attempt at mere amusement and entertainment, became serious. Alice recovered and opened her eyes. "John," she said, "does he understand?" "I think so," Dick replied. "You were my father's first wife. In order to be free, he divorced you. He then married my mother. Believe me, madam, my mother was wholly ignorant, to the last, of this history." "Indeed, I believe it. I do not think there was a woman in America who would have married a man with such a record." "At all events, my mother would not." "And you are--my stepson." "No." Dick considered. "If I were your stepson, my mother would have come first. I'm not your stepson. In fact, there isn't a word in the language to express the relationship. But--if I may venture----" "Alice," Molly interposed, "make a friend of Dick, as you have of me. He will be the handiest, usefullest friend you can have. And he really is the best fellow in the world--aren't you, Dick?" "Of course I am," he replied stoutly. "As for trying to get money from you, he is incapable of it. Dick is one of the few people in the world who don't want money. You must call him Dick, though." The pale lady smiled faintly. "Dick," she said, "if I may ... we have a common sorrow and a common misfortune--mine, to have married a bad man; you, to be his son. Can these things make a foundation for friendship?" "Let us try," said Dick, with something like a moistening of the eye. He was a tender-hearted, sentimental creature, who could not bear to see a woman suffer. Alice held out her thin, white hand. Dick took it and kissed it. "If friendship," he said, "can exist between mistress and servant, then am I your friend. But if not, then your servant at your command." "This place," John Haveril laid his hand upon Dick's shoulder, "is your home, and what we have is at your service." "Dick," said Molly, "we are now a kind of cousins, and you are a sort of stepson of the house." "So long, Molly, as you don't call me brother." "John"--after the young people had gone--"did you tell him about his father?" "No, I didn't." John sat down, and gave his reasons very slowly. "Why? This way, I thought. He's the young man's father; that's true. But he ran away from his wife and his child--twice, he did. That won't make the son respect the father much, will it? Next, Alice, I've been to see the sick man."