with a groan. "His _friend,_" she said, and her chin shook;
"your father's son!" she said brokenly.

"Mamma!" Nannie protested--she was sitting up in bed, her hair in
its two braids falling over her white night-dress, her eyes, so
girlish, so frightened, fixed on that quivering iron face;
"Mamma! remember, he was in love with Elizabeth long ago, before
David ever thought--"

"In love with Elizabeth? He was never in love with anybody but
himself."

"Oh, Mamma, please forgive him! It's done now, and it can't be
undone."

"What has my forgiveness got to do with it? It's done, as you
say. It can't be undone. Nothing can be undone. Nothing; nothing.
All the years that remain cannot undo the years that I have been
building this up."

Nannie stared at her blankly. And suddenly the hard face
softened. "Lie down. Go to sleep." She put her big roughened hand
gently on the girl's head. "Go to sleep, my child." She took up
her candle, and a moment later Nannie heard the stairs creak
under her heavy tread.

Sarah Maitland did not sleep that night; but after the first
outburst, when Nannie had panted out, "It is--Elizabeth," and
then fled, there had been no anger. When the door closed behind
her stepdaughter, Blair's mother put her hand over her eyes and