"Why, certainly not, mother! My memory is not quite so treacherous as that. I was remarkably fond of Martha, as, I am quite sure, she was of me, and although I could not have been more than six or seven years old when she left us, I am not likely to forget her." "She belonged to that race of faithful, staunch-hearted domestics of which, I am afraid, there are very few specimens to be found nowadays, and I don't believe she would ever have left me had not her brother sent for her to keep house for himself and his six motherless little ones. I shall always respect and cherish her memory. She stood by me like the true-hearted woman she was through the great trouble of my life--and she died as she had lived, without breathing a word to anyone of the secret she had kept for so many years." Mrs. Winslade spoke the latter words as if to herself--as if for the moment she had forgotten that her son was by her side. Ever since he could remember Phil had been conscious, although he could not have told how or when the consciousness first came to him, that there was a secret in his mother's life, the particulars of which were kept as carefully from him as they were from the rest of the world. He had often speculated and wondered in his own mind as to the possible nature of it; but never had he ventured to hint, even in the most roundabout way, his wish to penetrate the mystery. To-night, however, there seemed something in his mother's mood different from any mood he had ever seen her in before. The death of her old servant had evidently affected her very deeply; hidden chords had been touched, and it might well be that scenes and incidents which time had robbed of their pristine sharpness of outline had for a little while been quickened into vivid life. In any case, it seemed to Phil that now, if ever, was the moment when he might look to be taken into his mother's confidence. He put forth his fingers in the dark, and having found one of her hands, he stroked it caressingly. "I am well aware, mother dear," he began, "and I seem always to have been, that many years ago your life was darkened by some great trouble, as to the particulars of which I know nothing. You have just told me that in Martha Dobson you have lost the one person to whom was known the secret of your life, and such having been the tie between you, its severance cannot but touch you keenly. But, mamsie dear, I want you not to forget that you have a son, and that if one confidant has been taken from you, there is another ready to your hand. That your trouble was over and past long ago I am quite aware, but I am equally as convinced that it entailed effects from which you are suffering now and probably will continue to suffer as long as you live. Why, then, not----?"