en?"

"He was beat," Neil stated deliberately, "when Everard moved to Green
River."

This was a sweeping statement, but Neil did not qualify it. He dropped
the subject and stood silent, turning absent eyes upon the green expanse
of marshy field that had been the starting-place of all his dreams when
he was a dream-struck, gazing boy. His mother's eyes followed his,
growing cloudier and soft as if even now she could read them there.

"Rests your eyes," Neil said, after a minute; "looks pretty, too, in the
sun. It's a pretty green. We'll drain it, perhaps, by the time I'm mayor
or governor. It might pay. I'll be going now."

"Neil, when did you see her last?" asked his mother suddenly.

"See who?" he muttered, and then flushed, and straightened himself, and
met her eyes bravely.

"I saw Judith yesterday," he said, "on Main Street, and--she cut me."

"Did she walk past you?"

"No, she wouldn't do that. She pretended not to see me, but she saw me,
all right. She passed me in an automobile."

"Whose?"

"One of Everard's."

"Was he with her?"

"Yes."

"Neil," his mother began a little breathlessly, "I want to tell you
something. I've said hard things to you, and they weren't deserved. I
know it now, and I'm sorry. I want to take them all back. I've said hard
things about Judith Randall."

She hurried on, afraid of being stopped, but he made no move to stop
her. He listened courteously, his face not changing.

"Neil, she's not what I thought. There's no harm in her. There's no
pride in her. She's just lonesome. She's just a young, young girl. She's
sweet-spoken and sweet-faced. Neil, from all I hear----"

"You didn't hear all this direct from--Judith, then?"

"Judith?" she hesitated, flashing a questioning glance at him. "Is it
likely? How would I get the chance? But from all I hear, she's too good
for Everard and the like. And she's not safe with them. She needs----"

"What?" interrupted her son gravely, with the air of seeking information
on a subject quite strange to him and rather distasteful. But she tried
to go on.

"--Judith needs--any one that's fond of her, any one that she's fond of,
to be good to her now. I've seen her, and it's in the eyes of her. No
man ever knows just what a woman is grieving for, but that's all one if
he'll comfort her when she's grieving. She needs----"

Neil's eyes were expressionless. She sighed and put her two hands on his
shoulders. "Have it your own way," she said