Again the sun had set and it was twilight in the little New England village. The street had not changed much—the houses were grayer and the trees taller, perhaps. As he neared the familiar gate, he saw in the window the face of a silver-haired woman. Was that his mother—his dearly beloved mother of long ago? She turned her head and he was answered. After all, would it not be better to pass on and away again, rather than to bow that gray head once more in grief and shame? His steps lagged and he almost passed the gate. Then he drew a long breath, turned sharply, strode up the path and pulled the bell. The sweet-faced woman opened the door. The man’s dry lips parted, but no sound came, for from an inner room advanced Ethel Barrington with a gray-haired man whose kindly face wore a strangely familiar smile. “What is it, wife? Is it—Paul?” he asked in tremulous tones. EPILOGUE It was long hours afterward that Paul Joseph Weston sat with Ethel alone in the library. “But yourself, dear—you have not told me yet how you came to be here,” he said. She laughed softly. “Rash boy! Was there not need of someone’s preparing your father and mother for so wonderful a home-coming? I found out by judicious inquiry that you had not yet left the city, so I knew, when I took the train, that I had at least a few hours’ start of you.” “But how—what—how could you, dear? Surely I didn’t tell——” Again she laughed, but this time she dimpled into a rosy blush. “When your very disquieting letter came, sir, I remembered something Mr. Martin had once said to me. I went to town, sent for Mr. Martin and insisted upon his telling me all that he knew of—your youth.” “And that was?” “That he believed you to be Paul Weston, who had quarreled with his father and run away after apparently killing the poor gentleman. Mr. Martin said that the father did not die, but slowly recovered from his wound and made every possible effort to find his son, even sending Martin himself to seek for him. Once Martin traced the boy to a mining camp, but there he lost the trail and never regained it until he thought he saw Paul Weston’s features in Joseph Westbrook’s face.” “Ethel, what did Martin first tell you of me that caused you to go to him for aid?” “He hinted that you were a—ah, don’t make me say it, please!” The man’s face grew stern. “And he knew all the time it was false!” he cried. She put a soft finger on his tense lips. “We just won’t think of him—and really, I’ve forgiven him long ago, for it was he that helped me in the end, you know. Besides, he acknowledged that he didn’t really suppose you were Paul Weston. I—I fancy he didn’t want me to think too highly of this interesting Mr. Joseph Westbrook!” she added saucily. The arm that held her tightened its clasp. “He needn’t have worried,” she continued, with uptilted chin. “I shall never, never marry Mr. Joseph Westbrook!” “Ethel!” “But if Hustler Joe or Paul Weston should ask——”