re twenty years, openly, as you have. I must have
loved you! I did--I do! I do! I wish I were fit to love you now.
Because, in twenty years more.... The years pass, Aurie. Won't they
pass? My sentence----"

His gray head was bent down low in her lap now, as her son's had been at
this very place but a day before. Her hands--hands stained with needle
work, rough on the finger ends, the taper gone there into a little
square--were the same long shapely hands that had touched his hair at
another time. The eyes that looked down at him now under long, soft,
dark lashes were the same. But they were more brooding--tender, yes, but
more sad, more wise. There was no passion in her gaze, in her touch.
What was hatred or revenge to her?

His face was hid deep in his hands as he knelt. It lay there in that
haven, the lap of woman, the place of forgiveness--and of hope, as some
vague memory seemed to say to him. Indeed, all the wisdom and all the
mercy and all the hope of a world or of a universe of worlds were in the
low voice of Aurora Lane as she stroked back his hair--the gray hair of
an old man, who knelt beside her. It was the ancient pitying instinct of
woman that was in her touch. Hardly she knew she touched him, so
impersonal was it all to her.

"Will, you poor boy, you poor boy! Oh, poor boy!" He heard her voice
once more. Suddenly he raised his head, he sprang up, he stood before
her.

"You do forgive me!" A sort of triumph was in the eager note of his
voice. "You say 'poor boy!' You do forgive me!" He advanced toward her.

But Aurora also had risen quickly. Now, suddenly, some shock came to
her, vivifying, clarifying. The needle of her heart swung on the dial of
Today.

"Forgive you!" she exclaimed, her color suddenly gone high. "Forgive
you--what do you mean?--what do you _mean_?"

"You said you pitied me----"

"Pity you, yes, I do. I'm sorry for you from the bottom of my heart. I'd
be sorry to see any man go through what you've got to face. Yes, _pity_
you--but--love you? What do you mean? Is that what you mean? _Respect_
you--is that what you mean? Oh, no! Oh, no! Use for you, in any way in
the world?--Oh, no! Oh, no! Don't mistake. _Pity_--that's all! Don't I
know what it means to descend into hell? And that's what you must do."

"But, Aurie--Aurie--you just said----"

"I said I was sorry for you, and so I am, in all my heart. But he's our
boy. I've paid my share in anguish. So must you."

"Haven't I? Hav