which she did not want to know
anything more.

"How terrible," she said in a low voice that quivered. If the people
got to know anything, oh, then she did not put her thought into words,
for the sudden dread was almost choking her--then they would not get
rid of the past. Then that woman would come and demand her right, and
could not be shaken off any more. "Do you think," she whispered
hesitatingly, "do you think they--they guess--the truth?"

"Oh no, they're very far off the mark," laughed the doctor, but then
he grew grave again directly. "My dear lady, let us leave those people
and their surmises alone." Oh dear, now he had meddled with a delicate
subject, he felt quite hot--what if she knew that they thought that her
Paul, that most faithful of husbands, had duties of a special kind
towards the child?

"Surmises--oh, what is it they surmise?" She urged him to
tell her, whilst her eyes scrutinised his, full of terror.

"Nonsense," he said curtly. "Why do you want to trouble about that?
But I told you and your husband that at once. If you make such a secret
of the boy's parentage, all kinds of interpretations will be placed on
it. Well, you would not hear of anything else."

"No." Kate closed her eyes and gave a slight shudder. "He's our
child--our child alone," she said with a strange hardness in her voice.
"And nobody else has anything to do with him."

He shook his head and looked at her questioningly, surprised at her
tone.

Then she jerked out: "I'm afraid."

He felt how the hand that was lying on his arm trembled
slightly.

Amid the gaiety of the evening something had fallen on Kate's joy
that paralysed it, as it were. Many questions were asked her about
little Wolf--that was so natural, they showed her their friendly
interest by means of these questions--and they watched her quietly at
the same time: it was marvellous how she behaved. They had hardly
believed the delicate woman capable of such heroism. How much she must
love her husband, that she took his child--for the boy must be his
child, the resemblance was too marked, exactly the same features, the
same dark hair--this child of a weak hour to her heart without showing
any ill-will or jealousy. She, the childless woman, to take another
woman's child. That was grand, almost too grand. They did not
understand it quite.

And Kate felt instinctively that there was something concealed
behind the questions they asked her--was it admiration or comp