"She returned here to St. Florentin day before yesterday," Barney said very gently. "She wouldn't let any one come with her; she thought if she was here alone, with just the Indians, he might come back to her."
Ethel's eyes filled. "That's like grandmother. You've seen her here, Barney?"
"I stopped in yesterday to thank her for a cake and jelly she'd made with her own hands and sent out to the Rock for mother."
"Dearest, isn't she—wonderful?"
"Your grandmother? Yes."
"I knew it; but I meant—your mother."
Barney halted, and she stopped before him; they were in a little bower of trees and leafing bushes, with birds whistling and chirping. He looked into her eyes, and she saw that he wanted to tell her a part of what he was feeling but when he looked away from her and down, she knew he could not.
"A mother," he said, "is rather a great institution."
It caught at her heart as a more conscious expression could not have done.
"I knew, dear, that cousin Agnes was your mother before I went away."
He looked up at her. "Yes; I'd supposed so."
"But that was not why I went, Barney. Now I can tell you why. It was—horrible, Barney. I never really believed it but—but, you see, the next morning after that night we—we loved, dear, and you'd held me and I'd been yours, grandfather came to me and told me that cousin Agnes was your mother and your father was—mine."
His hand jerked from hers in recoil. "What?"
"I tell you I didn't believe it; but he said—you see,
