hing on you?"

"No proof; but--"

"But you have made a fool of yourself?"

"Yes."

Mr. Houghton sat down again. "Go on," he said.

Maurice reached for a maulstick lying across the table; then leaned
over, his elbows on his knees, and tried, with two trembling
forefingers, to make it stand upright on the floor. "She's common. She
can't prove it's--mine." His effort to keep the stick vertical with
those two shaking fingers was agonizing.

"Begin at the beginning," Henry Houghton said.

Maurice let the maulstick drop against his shoulder and sunk his head on
his hands. Suddenly he sat up: "What's the use of lying? She's _not_ bad
all through." The truth seemed to tear him as he uttered it. "That's the
worst of it," he groaned. "If she was, I'd know what to do. But probably
she's not lying... She says it's mine. Yes; I pretty well know she's not
lying."

"We'll go on the supposition that she is. I have yet to see a white
crow. How much does she want?"

"She's only asked me to help her, when--it's born. And of course, if it
_is_ mine, I--"

"We won't concede the 'if.'"

"Uncle Henry," said the haggard boy, "I'm several kinds of a fool, but
I'm not a skunk. I've got to be decent"

"You should have thought of decency sooner."

"I know. I know."

"You'd better tell me the whole thing. Then we'll talk lawyers."

So Maurice began the squalid story. Twice he stopped, choking down
excuses that laid the blame on Eleanor.... "It wouldn't have happened if
I hadn't been--been bothered." And again, "Something had thrown me off
the track; and I met Lily, and--"

At last it was all said, and he had not skulked behind his wife. He had
told everything, except those explaining things that could not be told.

When the story was ended there was silence. The older man, guessing the
untold things, could not trust himself to speak his pity and anger and
dismay. But in that moment of silence the comfort of confession made the
tears stand in the boy's eyes; he said, impulsively, "Uncle Henry, I
thought you'd kick me out of the house!"

Henry Houghton blew his nose, and spoke with husky harshness. "Eleanor
has no suspicions?" (He, too, was choking down references to Eleanor
which must not be spoken.)

"No. Do you think I ought to--to tell--?"

"No! No! With some women you could make a clean breast... I know a
woman--her husband hadn't a secret from her; and I know _he_ was a fool
before his marriage! He made a clean breast