It was no light matter for one of his proud nature—he had inherited his mother's pride together with the Reeves' temper—to step in one moment from the position of benefactor to benefactee; to pass from the landed country gentleman to the impecunious adopted brother. It tried him beyond words. There was indeed one phase of the question which might have brought gratification; the fact that he would give up everything to Colin. But this was more than balanced by all that Colin had lost through him in years gone by. He stood in the hall, thinking, on his way to the library. Mrs. Keith had to leave. That was beyond debate. Not that Colin would not forgive, but that she had forfeited all right to stay. And the sooner the better! He too must depart, must bid farewell to the broad acres which he had held to be his own, must wander forth, "not knowing whither he went." That at least was clear. He had harmed Colin enough. "Time he should be quit of me and mine!" he muttered. Opening the library-door, he was met by a silencing gesture. Colin lay asleep on the sofa, and Phyllys had been bathing his forehead. She retreated with Giles to the small ante-room. "His head was so bad," she whispered. "I found him here, after he had been with Mrs. Keith, hardly able to speak. But he won't hear if we talk softly." She had something to say, and she went straight to the point. "I'm so sorry, Giles. If you could know how sorry! So ashamed of myself!" He supposed her "sorrow" to mean sympathy for him in his changed position. The "ashamed" brought perplexity, though he only said, with a melancholy smile— "You have to learn that my name is not Giles—that I am Colin Keith." "So difficult to believe!" "More than difficult. I find it all but impossible to believe that any one—" he stopped. "And she—my mother!" "What a life hers must have been! And how extraordinary that it was never found out!" "Too wildly improbable!" "I have suspected—lately." "You!" A deep flush overspread his face. Was this why she had refused him—because she foresaw that he might be a poor man? The conjecture no sooner arose than he crushed it down. He could not think unworthy things of Phyllys. That she could think unworthy things of him would, to his mind, have seemed equally impossible. "I had the fancy. It explained so much that one couldn't understand. But that isn't all. That wasn't what I wanted to tell you," she went on, penitent and abashed. "Something much worse. Giles, I—I was afraid—that perhaps 'you' knew!" "Knew what?" "What she had done," very low. "That you were—not really Giles Randolph." "You believed 'I' knew! 'I'—a party to the fraud! Good heavens!" and he looked at her in consternation. "You don't mean it!" "It was horrid—horrid of me! But I—couldn't understand. Please forgive!" "You could think me capable!" She broke into a sob, tears dropping.