"If you 'consider the stars,' you will find very few things are worth bothering about! Except, of course, wrongdoing."
And, to his own astonishment, he found himself saying, "I'm afraid that's where I come in!" As he spoke, he remembered that night of the eclipse—oh, those moon-washed depths, those stupendous serenities of Law and Beauty which, together, are Truth! How passionately he had desired Truth. And now Mrs. Houghton was saying "Consider the stars." "If I could only tell her!" he thought.
"If the wrongdoing is behind you," said Mary Houghton, "let it go."
"It won't let me go," he said, with nervous lightness. "Though it's behind me, all right!"
Which made her say, gently, "Maurice, perhaps I know what troubles you?" His start made her add, quickly: "Your uncle Henry has never betrayed your confidence; but ... I guessed, long ago, that something had gone wrong. I don't know how wrong—"
"Oh, Mrs. Houghton," he said, despairingly, "awfully wrong! Awfully—awfully wrong!" He put his elbow on his knee, and rested his chin on his clenched fist; she was silent. Then he said: "You've always been an angel to me. I am glad you guessed. Because—I don't know what to do."
"About the woman?"
"No. The boy."
"Oh!" she said; "a child!"
Her dismay was like a blow. "But you said you had 'guessed'?"