She did, indeed, keep in her mind a thought of final confession. Just at the last, when she had lived the life she preferred, when everybody would pity her, when she would not have to face earthly consequences—"then" she would speak out. It did not occur to her that she might not then be able to speak out, except in moments of fright, such as during the storm on the lake; and the impression made was wont to pass quickly. More often she tried to think that it did not really matter; that Giles was quite as happy under the name of Colin; that his delicacy of health made him unfit for the position so ably filled by her son; that practically he had all he needed, since if he named a want it was supplied; that, after bringing up her own boy to ease and wealth, she would wrong him by speaking out. The latter was inconsistent with her proposed dying confession; but Mrs. Keith was not consistent. This way or that way she always reached the same conclusion, that the fiction must be continued. One aim she had long had—to bring about a union between "Giles" and Phyllys. "Colin's" health was fragile. He might not be long-lived; and Phyllys stood next in succession. Should "Colin" die unmarried, the estate would by right pass to her; and if she were "Giles'" wife, she would then possess her own. It would matter little that she seemed in the eyes of the world to do so through her husband. The incessant strain had told upon Mrs. Keith's health; and as time went by, hysterical tendencies amounted to something beyond hysteria. There was, no doubt, as more than one believed, a touch of "brain" in her excitement, in her powers of tortuous self-deception. All these years, when recoiling with horror from the thought of exposure, the deepest dread in her mind had been lest Giles—her own boy, her Colin—should despise his mother. Anything rather than that! "His" contempt she could not endure. But the look that broke her down, the look in those sombre blue eyes, with their drooping corners, which she loved, was not disdain. It was the overpowering shame, the bitter sorrow, that touched her heart; for she, his mother, had brought all this upon him, and she knew how her tale must look in the sight of the one being for whose sake she could almost have died. Not quite; a woman of her calibre dies—quite—for nobody. Self always ranks first. Still, she did love him passionately; and when she thought of her little child's clinging arms, and realised that she might have kept his loving trust in ever-growing measure to life's end, she could have cried with one of old, "My punishment is greater than I can bear." CHAPTER XXXVII READJUSTMENTS