“I told you I was a runaway. I didn’t say why, before. It’s truth. My people, my--father--forced me to college. I hated it. He was forcing me to business. I liked art. All my friends were artists. When I should have been at the books I was in their studios. They were a gay crowd, spent money like water when they had it; merrily starved and pinched when they hadn’t. A few were worse than spendthrifts, and with my usual want of sense I made that particular set my intimates. I never had any money, though, after it was suspected what my tastes were, except a little that my mother gave.” Margot was listening breathlessly and watching intently. At the mention of his mother a shadow crossed Adrian’s face, softening and bettering it, and as they rose to go home she saw that his whole mood had changed. IX. AN UNANSWERABLE QUESTION It was weeks afterward when they were again surrounded by the many wonderful inhabitants of the forest that Adrian mentioned his own parents. Their talk drifted from vexing subjects to merry anecdotes of his childhood, in the home where he had been the petted, only brother of a half-dozen elder sisters. But while they laughed and Margot listened, her fingers were busy weaving a great garland of wild laurel, and when it was finished she rose and said: “It’s getting late. There’ll be just time to take this to the grave. Will you go with me?” “Yes.” But this was another of the puzzling things he found at Peace Island. In its very loveliest nook was the last resting-place of Cecily Romeyn, and the sacred spot was always beautiful with flowers, or, in the winter, with brilliant berries. Both the master and the girl spoke of their dead as if she were still present with them; or, at least, lived as if she were only removed from sight but not from their lives. When Margot had laid the fresh wreath upon the mound, she carefully removed the faded flowers of the day before, and a thought of his own mother stirred Adrian’s heart. “I wish I could send a bunch of such blossoms to the mater!” “How can you live without her, since she is still alive?” His face hardened again. “You forget. I told you that she, too, turned against me at the last. It was a case of husband or son, and she made her choice.” “Oh! no. She was unhappy. One may do strange things then, I suppose. But I tell you one thing: if I had either father or mother, anywhere in this world; no matter if either was bad--had done everything that is sinful!--nothing should ever, ever make me leave them. Nothing. I would bear anything, do anything, suffer anything--but I would be true to them. I could not forget that I was their child, and if I had done wrong to them my whole life would be too short to make atonement.”