Mrs. Clephane, under her daughter’s relentless eyes, felt the blood rising from her throat to her pale lips and drawn cheeks, and to the forehead in which her pulses must be visibly beating. She lay there, bathed in a self-accusing crimson, and it seemed to her that those clear young eyes were like steel blades plunging into the deepest folds of her conscience. “You don’t hate him? But then you’re in love with him--you’re in love with him, and I’ve known it all along!” The girl shrilled it out suddenly, and hid her face in her hands. Kate Clephane lay without speaking. In the first shock of the outcry all her defences had crashed together about her head, and it had been almost a relief to feel them going, to feel that pretences and disguises were at an end. Then Anne’s hands dropped to her side, and the mother, meeting her gaze, lost the sense of her own plight in the sight of that other woe. All at once she felt herself strong and resolute; all the old forces of dissimulation were pouring back through her veins. The accusing red faded from her face, and she lay there and quietly met the question in Anne’s eyes. “_Anne!_” she simply said, with a little shrug. “Oh, mother--mother! I think I must be going mad!” Anne was on her knees at the bedside, her face buried in the coverlet. It was easier to speak to her while her eyes were hidden, and Kate laid a hand on her hair. “Not mad, dear; but decidedly over-strung.” She heard the note of magnanimity in her own voice. “But can you forgive me--ever?” “Nonsense, dear; can I do anything else?” “But then--if you _do_ forgive me, really--why must you go away? Why won’t you promise to stay with us?” Kate Clephane lay against her pillows and meditated. Her hand was still in Anne’s hair; she held the girl’s head gently against the coverlet, still not wishing her own face to be too closely scrutinized. At length she spoke. “I didn’t mean to tell you just yet; and you must tell no one.” She paused, and rallied her failing courage. “I can’t promise to stay with you, dear, because I may be going to get married too.” The first words were the most difficult to say; after that she heard her voice going on steadily. “Fred Landers has asked me to marry him; and I think I shall accept.... No; don’t hug me too hard, child; my head still aches--There; now you understand, don’t you? And you won’t scold me any more? But remember, it’s a secret from every one. It’s not to be spoken of till after you’re married.... Now go.”