oh no! You are mistaken, sir. You
couldn't know them. His--his relatives don't live here. They live in
another city. You couldn't possibly know them!"

She was white with terror. What would Carl say? Oh, she must lie her way
out of it! How mad she had been to come here and hint at things!

"I have known Johnny Smith's parentage for several years, Mary."

"I didn't say the child was Johnny Smith!"

"_I_ said so."

"I don't know what you're talking about! The father and mother lived out
West, but _I_ don't know the child. He is nothing to me."

"I wonder," said Doctor Lavendar, half to himself, "do we all deny love
thrice?--for you do love him, Mary, my dear; I know you do."

She tried, in panic denial, to meet his quiet eyes--then gave a little
moan and bent over and hid her face on her knees.

"Oh, I do love him--I do," she said in a whisper. "But he doesn't love
me. . . . And yet he is _mine_--Carl's and mine." Then anger flared up
again: "Who told you? Oh, it was Miss Lydia, and she promised she
wouldn't! How wicked in her!"

"No one told me." There was a moment's silence, then Doctor Lavendar
said, "There were people in Old Chester who thought he was Miss
Lydia's."

"Fools! fools!" she said, passionately.

"No one came forward to deny it."

She did not notice this; the flood of despair and longing broke into
entreaty; how could she get her child--her own child--who considered her
just an outsider! "That's Miss Lydia's influence!" she said.

Doctor Lavendar listened, asked a question or two, and then was silent.

"I am dying for him!" she said; "oh, I am in agony for him!"

The old man looked at her with pitying keenness. Was this agony a
spiritual birth or was it just the old selfishness which had never
brooked denial? And if indeed it was a travail of the spirit, would not
the soul be stillborn if her son's love should fail to sustain it? Yet
why should Johnny love her? . . . Mary was talking and trying not to
cry; her words were a fury of pain and protest:

"Miss Lydia won't give him up to people who haven't any claim upon
him,--I mean any claim that is known. Of course we have a claim--the
greatest! But Johnny doesn't know, so he won't consent to take our
name--though it is our _right_! He doesn't know any reason for it. You
see?"

"I see."

"I suppose if we told him the truth we could get him. But I'm afraid to
tell him. Yet without telling him I can't make him love me! He said I
was an 'ou