"You must not forget that you can walk by yourself, Kenny. Your father is dead. The world is kind enough to let the dead rest in peace. But it gives no quarter to the living. My mother walks with me, Kenneth Gwynne. The world, when it knows, will throw stones at her. That means it will have to throw stones at me. She did not abandon me. I shall not abandon her. She sinned,"--here her lip trembled,--"and she has been left to pay the penalty alone. It may sound strange to you, but my mother was also deserted by your father. God let him die, but I can't help feeling that it wasn't fair, it wasn't right for him to die and leave her to face this all alone." "And you want to know where I stand in the matter?" "It makes no difference, Kenny. I only want you to understand. I don't want to lose you as a friend,--I would like to have you stand up and take your share of the--" "And that is just what I intend to do," he broke in. "We occupy strange positions, Viola. We are,--shall I say birds of a feather? This had to come. Now that it has come and you know all that I know, are we to turn against each other because of what happened when we were babies? We have done no wrong. I love you, Viola,--I began loving you before I found out you were not my half-sister. I will love you all my life. Now you know where I stand." She looked straight into his eyes for a long time; in her own there was something that seemed to search his soul, something of wonder, something groping and intense as if her own soul was asking a grave, perplexing question. A faint, slow surge of colour stole into her face. "I must go in the house now," she said, a queer little flutter in her voice. "After dinner I am going down with mother to see Moll Hawk. If--if you mean all that you have just said, Kenny, why did you refuse to shake hands with me?" He withdrew his bruised right hand from its hiding-place. "It is an ugly thing to look at but I am proud of it," he said. "I would give it for you a thousand times over." "Oh, I'm--I'm sorry I misjudged you--" she cried out. Then both of her hands closed on the unsightly member and pressed it gently, tenderly. There was that in the touch of her firm, strong fingers that sent an ecstatic shock racing into every fibre in his body. "I will never question that hand again, Kenny," she said, and then, releasing it, she turned and walked rapidly away. He stood watching her until she ran nimbly up the porch steps and disappeared inside the house. Whereupon he lifted the swollen but now blessed knuckles to his lips and sighed profoundly. "Something tells me she still loves Barry, in spite of everything," he muttered, suddenly immersed in gloom. "Women stick through thick and thin. If they once love a man they never--" "Dinner's ready, Marse Kenneth," announced Zachariah from the door-step. CHAPTER XXVI THE FLIGHT OF MARTIN HAWK