but
his young life soon lost the keenness of the impression, and he loved
his mother because she loved him, and not because she had been dying for
him so many years.

As he now came into her room, and the waiting-woman went out of it with
her usual, "Well, Mr. Dan!" the tenderness which filled him at sight of
his mother was mixed with that sense of guilt which had tormented him at
times ever since he met his sisters. He was going to take himself from
her; he realised that.

"Well, Dan!" she called, so gaily that he said to himself, "No, father
hasn't told her anything about it," and was instantly able to answer her
as cheerfully, "Well, mother!"

He bent over her to kiss her, and the odour of the clean linen mingling
with that of the opium, and the cologne with which she had tried
to banish its scent, opened to him one of those vast reaches of
associations which perfumes can unlock, and he saw her lying there
through those years of pain, as many as half his life, and suddenly the
tears gushed into his eyes, and he fell on his knees, and hid his face
in the bed-clothes and sobbed.

She kept smoothing his head, which shook under her thin hand, and
saying, "Poor Dan! poor Dan!" but did not question him. He knew that
she knew what he had come to tell her, and that his tears, which had not
been meant for that, had made interest with her for him and his cause,
and that she was already on his side.

He tried boyishly to dignify the situation when he lifted his face, and
he said, "I didn't mean to come boohooing to you in this way, and I'm
ashamed of myself."

"I know, Dan; but you've been wrought up, and I don't wonder. You
mustn't mind your father and your sisters. Of course, they're rather
surprised, and they don't like your taking yourself from them--we, none
of us do."

At these honest words Dan tried to become honest too. At least he
dropped his pretence of dignity, and became as a little child in his
simple greed for sympathy. "But it isn't necessarily that; is it,
mother?"

"Yes, it's all that, Dan; and it's all right, because it's that. We
don't like it, but our not liking it has nothing to do with its being
right or wrong."

"I supposed that father would have been pleased, anyway; for he has seen
her, and--and. Of course the girls haven't, but I think they might have
trusted my judgment a little. I'm not quite a fool."

His mother smiled. "Oh, it isn't a question of the wisdom of your
choice; it's the