"No; because the things said were very simple—just statements of fact as to which there could be no misunderstanding." "Had the statements of fact anything"—he moistened his dry lips—"anything to do with—with Hubert?" "Some of them. But there!" She caught herself up. "You’re not going to make me tell you things. I’m your mother, and if I intervene at all, it must be in the way of helping you to come together and not of putting you apart." She rose, drawing her cloak about her. "I think I must go in, dear. I’m beginning to feel the damp." He, too, rose, sitting down again sidewise on the rustic rail of the summerhouse. "Wait a minute, mother. I want to ask you something. When I was at Marillo I wandered into your room one day and saw a picture." "A picture?" "Yes; a picture; and I—I wondered how it—it happened to come there." She bent a little toward him, drawing her cloak more closely about her. If it was acting it was well done. "It—it couldn’t have been—" He chucked the butt of his cigarette into the lake. "Yes, I guess it was. It had an inscription on it—’Life and Death, by Hubert Wray.’" "Oh, my God! Where did you say you saw it, Bob?" "In your bedroom, against the wall. I thought it might be a portrait you’d had done, and so lifted—" "And I told them to put it out of sight. You see, Hubert didn’t send it till after we’d left the house—just before he went to California. I’d given orders that it was to be locked up in an empty closet in my wardrobe room. Oh, Bob darling, I don’t know what you’re going to think of me." "Oh, you’re all right, mother. It wasn’t you. I—I only wondered how you’d come by the thing at all." She made an obvious effort at controlling emotion. "Why, Bob, it was this way. After—after what Jennie told me that day I—I naturally thought a good deal about Hubert—and—and their relations to each other—" "She talked about them, did she?" "Well, you see, in a way she had to. She was let in for it, poor thing. I can’t tell you everything without giving you the whole story—and it’s _her_ story, as I’ve said before. I’ve no right to betray her, and least of all to you." "All right. Go on." "So when I’d heard that Hubert had a new picture at the Kahler Gallery—and everyone was talking about it—and I knew from the things they said what—what sort of a picture it was—" "Yes, yes; I understand." "Well, then, I—I went and saw it; and to—to get it out of sight I bought it on the spot. I didn’t want it to be still on exhibition when you came back; and I hoped that people would forget it. I should have burned it at once, only that Hubert delayed sending it, and—well, you see how it happened. But even so, Bob dear, you knew you were marrying a model—" "Oh yes; it isn’t that—not altogether." She laid her hand on his shoulder. "What is it, Bob darling? Can’t you tell _me_? I’m your mother, dear—" But he moved away from her touch, as if unable to bear sympathy.