“Something kept telling me not to go away,” he said. “It must have been in the air--this thing. Already these evil crawling things were at work. Oh, if only all the world, like you and Telfer and some of the others here, had an appreciation of the sense of privacy.” Mary Underwood laughed quietly. “I was more than half right when, in the old days, I dreamed of making you a man at work upon the things of the mind,” she said. “The sense of privacy indeed! What a fellow you have become! John Telfer’s method was better than my own. He has given you the knack of saying things with a flourish.” Sam shook his head. “Here is something that cannot be faced down with a laugh,” he said stoutly. “Here is something at you--it is tearing at you--it has got to be met. Even now women are waking up in bed and turning the matter over in their minds. To-morrow they will be at you again. There is but one way and we must take it. You and I will have to marry.” Mary looked at the serious new lines of his face. “What a proposal!” she cried. On an impulse she began singing, her voice fine and strong running through the quiet night. “He rode and he thought of her red, red lips,” she sang, and laughed again. “You should come like that,” she said, and then, “you poor muddled boy. Don’t you know that I am your new mother?” she added, taking hold of his two arms and turning him about facing her. “Don’t be absurd. I don’t want a husband or a lover. I want a son of my own and I have found him. I adopted you here in this house that night when you came to me sick and covered with mud. As for these women--away with them--I’ll face them down--I did it once before and I’ll do it again. Go to your city and make your fight. Here in Caxton it is a woman’s fight.” “It is horrible. You don’t understand,” Sam protested. A grey, tired look came into Mary Underwood’s face. “I understand,” she said. “I have been on that battlefield. It is to be won only by silence and tireless waiting. Your very effort to help would make the matter worse.” The woman and the tall boy, suddenly become a man, stood in thought. She was thinking of the end toward which her life was drifting. How differently she had planned it. She thought of the college in Massachusetts and of the men and women walking under the elm trees there. “But I have got me a son and I am going to keep him,” she said aloud, putting her hand on Sam’s arm. Very serious and troubled, Sam went down the gravel path toward the road. He felt there was something cowardly in the part she had given him to play, but he could see no alternative. “After all,” he reflected, “it is sensible--it is a woman’s battle.” Half way to the road he stopped and, running back, caught her in his arms and gave her a great hug. “Good-bye, little Mother,” he cried and kissed her upon the lips.