She could not reply.

"Then was what--what that man said--was _that the truth_?"

After what seemed to both of them an age of agony she looked up.

She nodded mutely.

Then her hand gripped fiercely at his coat lapel. A great dread filled her. Must she lose also her boy, for whom she had lived, for whom she had denied herself all these years--the boy who was more than life itself to her? Her face was white. She looked up into another face, a strange face, that of her son; and it was white as her own.

"I didn't know it," said he simply at length. "Of course, if I had known, I wouldn't have done what I did. I would have worked."

"No, no! Now you are just fitted to work. It's over--it's done--we have put you through."

"You told me my father was dead. Where is he--who is he?"

"I will never tell you, Don," said she steadily, "not so long as you live will I tell you. I have never told anyone on earth, and I never will."

"Then how do they know--then why should that man say what he did?"

"They know--about you--that--that you happened--that's all. They thought you died as a child, a baby--we sent you away. They don't know who it was--your father--I couldn't have lived here if anyone had known--that was my secret--my one secret--and I will keep it all my life. But here are you, my boy! I will not say I am sorry--I will never say that again!

I am glad--I'm glad for anything that's given me _you_! And you fought for me--the first time anyone ever did, Don."

He was turning away from her now slowly, and she followed after him, agonized.

"It wasn't _your_ fault, Don!" said she. "Try to remember that always.

Haven't I taken it up with G.o.d--there on my knees?" She pointed to the little room where the corner of the white bed showed. "On my knees!"

She followed him as he still walked away. "Oh, Don," she cried, "what do you mean, and what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to try to forget everything of all my life. G.o.d! if I could undo it--if I could forget how I got my education," said he. "Tell me, didn't he help at all--did you, all alone, bring me up, far away, never seeing me, educating me, keeping me--taking care of me--didn't he, my father, do anything at all--for you?"

"No, I did it--or at least half of it."

"And who the other half?"

"Never mind, Don, never mind." She patted eagerly on the lapel of his coat, which once more she had caught and was fingering. "Oh, this was to have been my very happiest day--I have been living and working for this all these long, long years--for the day when I'd see you. Let me have a little of it, can't you, Don? If you should forsake me now, I will know that G.o.d has; and then I'll know I never had a chance."

Quickly he laid a hand upon her shoulder. "No, I'll wait."

"What do you mean?" she asked. "What is it that you will do?"

"Find out who he was," said he, his face haggard.

"You will never do that, Don."

"Oh, yes. And when I do----"

"What then?"

"I'll kill him, probably. At least I'll choke this lie or this truth, whichever it is, down the throats of this town. G.o.d! I'm _filius nullius_! I'm the son of no man! I'm worse. I'm a loafer. I've been supported by a woman--my own mother, who had so little, who was left alone--oh, G.o.d! G.o.d!"

"Don," she cried out now. "Don, I'd died if I could have kept it from you. Oh, my son--my son!"

CHAPTER III

TWO MOTHERS

The young man stood motionless, facing the white-faced woman who had p.r.o.nounced his fate for him. Happily it chanced that there came interruption, for a moment relieving both of the necessity of speech.

The click of the little crippled gate as it swung to brought Aurora Lane to her senses now. She hastened to the door, toward the outer stair. She met someone at the door.

"Julia!" she exclaimed. "Come in. Oh, I'm so glad. Come! He's here--he's come--he's right here now!"

There entered now the figure of a youngish-looking woman, her hair just tinged with gray here and there upon the temples; a woman perhaps the junior of Aurora Lane by a year or so. Of middle stature, she was of dark hair, and of brown eyes singularly luminous and soft. Not uncomely, one would have called her at first sight. The second glance would have shown the limp with which Julia Delafield walked, the bent-top cane which was her constant companion. She was one of those handicapped in the race of life, a cripple from her childhood, but a cripple in body only. One might not look in her face without the feeling that here was a nature of much charm.

Miss Julia likewise was owner of two smiles. The one was sad, pathetic, the smile of the hopeless soul. The other, and that usually seen by those about her, was wide and winning beyond words--the smile which had given her her place in the hearts of all Spring Valley. These many years "Miss Julia," as she was known to all, had held her place as "city librarian," in which quasi-public capacity she was known of all, and loved of all as well.

She came in now smiling, and kissed Aurora Lane before she allowed herself to see, standing in the inner room, the tall young man, who seemed to fill up the little apartment. A swift color came into her face as, with a sort of summoning up of her courage, she went up to him, holding out her hands. Even she put up her cheek to be kissed by him. It was her peculiarity when feeling any emotion, any eagerness, to flush brightly. She did so now.

"Oh, Miss Julia!" exclaimed Don. "I'm glad to see you. Why, I know you too--I feel as though I've always known you just as you are! So--you're my fairy G.o.dmother, who's got a real mother for me! All these years--till I was a man grown--how could you?--but I'd know you anywhere, because you're just the image of the picture you sent me with that of her. I mean when you wrote me last week for the first time--that wonderful letter--and told me I had a mother, and she was here, but that I mustn't ever come to see her. Of course, I wired at once I _was_ coming! See now----"

"You are tall, Don," said Miss Julia softly. "You are very tall. You are--you are fine! I'm so glad you grew up tall. All the heroes in my books are tall, you know." She laughed aloud now, a rippling, joyous little laugh, and hooking her cane across the chair arm, sank back into Aurora Lane's largest rocker, her tender, wistful face very much suffused.

Don fetched his mother also a chair, and seated himself, still regarding Miss Julia curiously. He saw the two women look at one another, and could not quite tell what lay in the look.

As for Miss Julia, she was still in ignorance of the late events in the public square, because she had come directly across to Aurora Lane's house after the closing of her own duties at the library this Sat.u.r.day afternoon, when most of her own patrons were disposed for the open than for books.

"Yes, Don," said she again, "you are fine!" Her eyes were all alight with genuine pride in him. "I'm so glad after all you came to see us before you went on West--even when I told you you mustn't! Oh, believe me, your mother scolded me! But I presume you are in a hurry to get away? And you've grown up! After all, twenty years is only a little time. Must you be in a hurry to leave us?"

"I ought not to be," said he, smiling pleasantly after all. "Surely I ought to come and see you two good partners first--I could not go away without that. Oh, mother has told me about you--or at least I'm sure she was just going to when you came in. Strange--I've got to get acquainted with my mother--and you. But I know you--you're two good partners, that's what you are--two good scouts together--isn't it true?"

Miss Julia flushed brightly. His chance word had gone pa.s.sing close to the truth, but he did not know the truth. Don Lane did not know that here sat almost the only woman friend Aurora Lane could claim in all Spring Valley. Miss Julia in fact was silent partner in this very millinery shop--and silent partner in yet other affairs of which Don Lane was yet to learn.

This was a great day for Miss Julia as well as for Don's mother. Time and again these two women had sat in this very room and planned for this homecoming of the boy--this boy--time and again planned, and then agreed he must not come--their son. For--yes--they _both_ called him son! If Don Lane, Dieudonne Lane, was _filius nullius_, at least he might boast two mothers.

How came this to pa.s.s? One would need to go back into the story of Miss Julia's life as well as that of Aurora Lane. She had been lame from birth, hopelessly so, disfiguringly so. Yet callous nature had been kind to her, had been compa.s.sionate. It gave to her a face of wondrous sweetness, a heart of wondrous softness thereto. Hopeless and resigned, yet never pathetic and never seeking pity, no living soul had ever heard an unkind or impatient word from Julia Delafield's lips, not in all her life, even when she was a child. She had suffered, yes. The story of that was written on her face--she knew she might not hope--and yet she hoped.

She knew all the great romances of the world, and knew likewise more than the greatest romancer ever wrote of women. For her--even with her wistful smile, the sudden flashing of her wistful eyes--there could be no romance, and she knew that well. Not for her was to be ever the love of man. She was of those cruelly defective in body, who may not hope for any love worth having. Surrounded daily by her friends, her books, Miss Julia was an eager reader, and an eager lover. She knew more of life's philosophy perhaps than any soul in all her town, and yet she might enjoy less of life's rewards than any other. A woman to the heart, feminine in every item, flaming with generous instincts, and yet denied all hope of motherhood; a woman steeped in philosophy and yet trained in emotion--what must she do--what could she do--she, one of the denied?

What Miss Julia had done long years ago was to select as her best friend the girl who of all in that heartless little town most needed a friend--Aurora Lane. She knew Aurora's secret--in part. In full she never yet had asked to know, so large was she herself of heart. All Spring Valley had scorned Aurora Lane, for that she had no father for her child. And--with what logic or lack of logic, who shall say?--Julia Delafield had taken Aurora Lane close to her own heart--_because_ she had the child!

It is not too much to say that these two hopeless women, the one outcast of society, the other outcast of G.o.d, had brought up that child between them. Those who say women have no secrets they can keep should have noted this strange partnership in business, in life, in maternity! This had gone on for twenty years, and not a soul in Spring Valley could have told the truth of it. Don Lane did not know of it even now.

"Why, Aurora," said Miss Julia more than once in those early years to her friend, "you must not grieve. See what G.o.d has given you--a son!--and such a son! How glad, how proud, how contented you ought to be. You have a son! Look at me!"