her, and had accompanied her to it that I might
see her really resting.

She was so tired that her eyes closed even as she gave me the
admonition. I drew the covers closer about her, raised the window a
trifle, drew down the shades, and left her.

As I closed the door softly behind me, I heard the querulous voice of
the invalid:

"Margaret! Margaret! Where are you?"

As I bent over my husband's mother she smiled up at me. Her
illness had done more to bridge the chasm, between us than years of
companionship could have done. One cannot cherish bitterness toward
an old woman helplessly ill and dependent upon one. And I think in
her own peculiar way she realized that I was giving her all I had of
strength and good will.

"What can I do for you?" I asked, returning her smile.

"I want something to eat, and after that I want to have a talk with
Richard. Where is he?"

"He is asleep," I answered mechanically. In a moment my thoughts had
flown back to the day my mother-in-law and I had met Harry Underwood
in trip Aquarium, and she had discovered he was Lillian Gale's
husband.

What was it Dicky's mother had said that day in the Aquarium rest
room?

"I have a duty to you to perform," she had declared, "a very painful
duty, which involves the reviving of an old controversy with my son. I
beg that you will not try to find out anything concerning its nature.
It is better far that you do not."

She had wished to go home at once and talk to Dicky. I had persuaded
her to go first to Fraunces's Tavern for luncheon. There she had been
taken ill, and in the days that had intervened between that time and
the moment I leaned over her bedside she and we around her had
been fighting for her life. There had been no opportunity for a
confidential talk between mother and son. And I was determined that
there should be none yet.

In the first place, she was in no condition to discuss any subject,
let alone one fraught with so many possibilities of excitement. In
the second place, I was determined that no one should discuss that old
secret with my husband before I had a chance to talk to him concerning
it.

"Well, you needn't go to sleep just because Richard is."

My mother-in-law's impatient voice brought me back to myself. I
apologized eagerly.

I have never seen any one enjoy food as my mother-in-law did the
simple meal I had prepared for her. She ate every crumb, drank the
wine, and drained the pot of tea before she spoke