Mrs. Elwyn shrank back and closed her lips tightly. Her expression
recalled to her son the look which used to come over her face when, as a
petted, over cared-for only child, he asked her for something which she
believed it would be bad for him to have. From that look there had been,
in old days, no appeal. But now he felt that he must say something more. His manhood demanded it of him. "Mother," he said earnestly, "as you have spoken to me of the matter, I
feel I must have it out with you! Please believe me when I say that you
are being unjust--indeed, cruelly so. I was to blame all through--from
the very beginning to the very end." "You must allow me," she said in a low tone, "to be the judge of that,
Hugh." She added deprecatingly, "This discussion is painful, and--and
very distasteful to me." Her son leant back, and choked down the words he was about to utter. He
knew well that nothing he could say would change or even modify his
mother's point of view. But oh! why had she done this? Why had she
chosen to-night, of all nights, to rend the veil which had always hung,
so decently, between them. He had felt happy to-night--not madly,
foolishly happy, as so many men feel at such moments, but reasonably,
decorously pleased with his present and his future. He was making a
_mariage de convenance_, but there had been another man on the lists, a
younger man than himself, and that had added a most pleasing zest to the
pursuit. He, aided of course by Winifred Fanshawe's prudent parents, had
won--won a very pretty, well-bred, well-behaved girl to wife. What more
could a man of forty-one, who had lived every moment of his life, ask of
that providence which shapes our ends? The traffic suddenly parted, and the horse leapt forward. As they reached their own front door, Mrs. Elwyn again spoke: "Perhaps I
ought to add," she said hurriedly, "that I know one thing to Mrs.
Bellair's credit. I am told that she is a most devoted and careful
mother to that little boy of hers. I heard to-day that the child is
seriously ill, and that she and the child's nurse are doing everything
for him." Mrs. Elwyn's voice had softened, curiously. She had an old-fashioned
prejudice against trained nurses. Hugh Elwyn helped his mother into the house; then, in the hall, he bent
down and just touched her cheek with his lips. "Won't you come up into the drawing-room? Just for a few minutes?" she
asked; there was a note of deep, yearning disappointment in her voice,
and her face looked grey and tired, very different from the happy,
placid air it had worn during the little dinner party. "No, thank you, mother, I won't come up just now. I think I'll go out
again for half an hour. I haven't walked at all to-day, and it's so
hot--I feel I shouldn't sleep if I turn in now." He was punishing his mother as he had seen other sons punishing their
mothers, but as he himself had never before to-night been tempted to
punish his. Nay, more, as Hugh Elwyn watched her slow ascent up the
staircase, he told himself that she had hurt and angered him past entire
forgiveness. He had sometimes suspected that she knew of that fateful
episode in his past life, but he had never supposed that she would speak
of it to him, especially not now, after years had gone by, and when,
greatly to please her, he was about to make what is called a "suitable"
marriage. He was just enough to know that his mother had hurt herself by hurting
him, but that did not modify his feelings of anger and of surprise at
what she had done. Of course she thought she knew everything there was
to know, but how much there had been that she had never even suspected! Those words--that admission--as to Fanny Bellair being a good mother
would never have passed Mrs. Elwyn's lips--they would never even have
been credited by her had she known the truth--the truth, that is, as to
the child to whom Mrs. Bellair was so passionately devoted, and who now,
it seemed, was ailing. That secret, and Hugh Elwyn thanked God, not
irreverently, that it was so, was only shared by two human beings, that
is by Fanny and himself. And perhaps, Fanny, like himself, had managed
by now almost to forget it....

Elwyn swung out of the house, he walked up South Street, and so into
Park Lane and over to the Park railings. There was still a great deal of
traffic in the roadway, but the pavements were deserted. As he began to walk quickly westward, the past came back and overwhelmed
him as with a great flood of mingled memories. And it was not, as his
mother would probably have visioned it, a muddy spate filled with
unclean things. Rather was it a flood of exquisite spring waters,
instinct with the buoyant head-long rushes of youth, and filled with
clear, happy shallows, in which retrospectively he lay and sunned
himself in the warmth of what had been a great love--love such as
Winifred Fanshawe, with her thin, complaisant nature, would never
bestow. The mother's imprudent words of unnecessary warning had brought back to
her son everything she had hoped was now, if not obliterated, then
repented of; but Elwyn's heart was filled to-night with a vague
tenderness for the half-forgotten woman whom he had loved awhile with so
passionate and absorbing a love, and to whom, under cover of that poor
and wilted thing, his conscience, he had ultimately behaved so ill.

Hugh Elwyn's mind travelled back across the years, to the very beginning
of his involved account with honour--that account which he believed to
be now straightened out. Jim Bellair had been Elwyn's friend--first college friend and then
favourite "pal." When Bellair had fallen head over ears in love with a
girl still in the schoolroom, a girl not even pretty, but with wonderful
auburn hair and dark, startled-looking eyes, and had finally persuaded,
cajoled, badgered her into saying "Yes," it was Hugh Elwyn who had been
Bellair's rather sulky best man. Small wonder that the bridegroom had
half-jokingly left his young wife in Elwyn's charge when he had had to
go half across the world on business that could not be delayed, while
she stayed behind to nurse her father who was ill. It was then, with mysterious, uncanny suddenness, that the mischief had
begun. There had been something wild and untamed in Fanny
Bellair--something which had roused in Elwyn the hunter's instinct, an
instinct hitherto unslaked by over easy victories. And then Chance, that
great, cynical goddess which plays so great a part in civilized life,
had flung first one opportunity and then another into his eager,
grasping hands. Fanny's father had died; and she had been lonely and in sorrow. Careless
friends, however kind, do not care to see much of those who mourn, but
he, Hugh Elwyn, had not been careless, nay, he had been careful to see
more, not less, of his friend's wife in this her first great grief, and
she had been moved to the heart by his sympathy. It was by Elwyn's advice that Mrs. Bellair had taken a house not far
from London that lovely summer. Ah, that little house!