"Doctor Lavendar, tell him—tell him, 'honor thy father and thy mother'!"
"'Honor'?" her son said. "Did I understand you to use the word 'honor'?"
Again Doctor Lavendar raised an admonishing hand. "Careful, John."
"He means," Carl said to his wife, quietly, though his face was gray—"he means he wants us to acknowledge him. Mary, I'm willing. Are you?"
Doctor Lavendar lifted his bowed head, and his old eyes were suddenly eager with hope. Johnny's mother stood looking at her child, her face twisted with tears.
"Must I, to get him?" she gasped.
"No," Johnny said; "it is quite unnecessary." He smiled, so cruelly that his father's hands clenched; but Mary only said, in passionate relief, "Oh, you are good!" And the hope in Doctor Lavendar's eyes flickered out.
"Nothing will ever be known?" her son repeated, still smiling. "Well, then, Mrs. Robertson, I thank you for 'nothing.'"
Doctor Lavendar frowned, and Mary recoiled, with a sort of moan. Carl Robertson cried out:
"Stop! You shall not speak so to your mother! I'm ashamed of you, sir!"