Rose Wilding drew quietly away, leaving Augusta dazed and heart sick. A fear more terrible than all--that her mother did not know her at all, would never know her--fell black upon her. True, her mother had called her "daughter." But she remembered that Rose Wilding had always had a habit of calling every girl daughter. Every girl in the neighborhood had been daughter with her. The big woman took Wardwell by the hand and led him aside into a corner of the room. "They're all like that here," she explained in a cautious whisper. "Every one of them thinks she's somebody else. I suppose the poor thing heard me speak of my daughter, and it wandered into her head that she was the one. And you might as well humor them. It does them no harm. You never can tell what they'll think of next. God help all that's afflicted!" "But, that _is_ your Augusta," said Wardwell. "Now, Mr. Jimmie, you know you're always at you nonsense!" Rose Wilding answered, smiling slowly at him. Now, curiously enough, it was that smile that brought the perspiration to Wardwell's forehead. It was the sane, deep, slowbreaking smile of Rose Wilding herself, the smile that had won the heart and the confidence of every child in every poor family of the parish. They knew her all, the big woman, the big woman of the smiling eyes, the mother heart, the never empty hand. There was Rose Wilding herself, in that smile. And yet, and yet--Wardwell reached at his tightening collar--there was a something else, a something deeper, farther away, elusive. And there was poor little stricken Augusta, standing alone in the middle of the room. He could see the sharp pink tips of her nails cutting into the palms of her hands as she fought back the bursting tears. The blood rushed back into his heart and he felt himself gasping as a man does when he takes the leap in a desperate, cold dive. He did not know whether he was a good man or not. He did not know whether he was kind or cruel. But he knew that he had the answer to Augusta's question of the night before. He loved Augusta with a love which had deepened in these weeks from a boy's harum-scarum affection into the deep, tender, protecting love of a man. He loved her, and would have given his life to save her the anguish of having to leave her mother in this place. Yet, he knew that it was unfair, wrong, unnatural. For her mother's sake, Augusta would sacrifice herself and marry any man. Wardwell knew it. Being Augusta, there was no choice for her. It was cruel, an outrage on her brave girlhood. But--So help him God!--he'd try to see that she never suffered from it. Thus Wardwell of the funny sheet. He nodded quietly to Augusta to leave the room. She went, strangely obedient to the look in his eyes. Then he turned to Rose Wilding. "Now, Mrs. Wilding," he said easily, "Augusta and I are going to be married right away so that you can come home and live with us."