"No. Giles agrees. He was—very good to me!" and her eyes filled. "He says neither he nor I will be a burden on you—and we have been talking of plans. I shall not trouble you many days. Of course I know—exactly—all you feel!" "You are sure!" he said gently. She had to face his eyes. Resistance collapsed. She was obliged to look, and the pain and pity which she found there took her by surprise. She flushed, paled, trembled. "Do you think it is nothing to lose a mother?" he asked. "You have been a good mother to me, as well as to Giles." She burst into a passion of tears, touched to the quick. The words which Giles had urged her to speak were now poured forth. "I am sorry—indeed I am. It has been misery! Always knowing—always dreading to be found out! Any moment I would thankfully have told—only I never could—never had courage." "It would have been happier for yourself." "Will you ever forgive me?" she entreated brokenly. He took her hand, not kissing her as he had been in the habit of doing, but with chivalrous compassion. Giles' distress had stirred her intensely, but this went farther. "So wronged—so wronged!" was all she could sob. "You have wronged Giles more than me. All these years you have deprived him of his mother." She clung to his hand sobbing, and even bent her face to kiss it. "How you can be so good to me! I don't deserve it! I thought—I thought—you would hate and despise—" "You will never think so again." "If only I had known—if I could have guessed—I would have spoken out long ago." Her lips were again on his hand, when he tried to draw it away. "Colin, you 'have' been a dear son to me—all the while—and I—and I—" "Don't you think we have said enough?" he asked. "Yes—perhaps—no use saying more. Only—I do believe now that some day God will forgive me, too—now you and Giles have been so good. Do you think—perhaps He will?" Colin bent and kissed her brow, as if he had been her son still. "Is Christ less merciful than man?" he murmured. An hour later Giles was on his way to the library, to write necessary letters. He was oppressed by a dazed sense that in no corner of the house had he a right to stay. He was homeless, a waif astray on the waters of life. The shock to him had been tremendous, the upheaval of feeling immense. As yet he had been hardly able to think of aught else—even of Phyllys—though in the background of his mind existed a heavy consciousness that he could no longer hope to win her. All his life he had used another's wealth. He had now to make his way, to support his mother, with no profession, no adequate means of subsistence. A few significant words had been spoken by Colin: "You have often said that what was yours was mine. This only means the same, reversed—that what is mine is yours." But Giles could not allow such generosity on the part of one whom he had—unwittingly—long and deeply injured.