“Because,” he answered passionately, “you should know, 511and Lila should know and your mother should know. Your father and I and my father all think so.”
Mrs. Nesbit sat back further in her chair. Her face showed anxiety. She looked at the two others and when Laura’s eyes met her mother’s, there was a warning in the daughter’s glance which kept her mother silent.
“Grant,” said Laura, as she stood beside the gaunt figure, on which a mantle of shame seemed to be falling, “there is nothing in the world that should be hard for you to tell me–or mother.”
“It isn’t you,” he returned, and then lifting his face and trying to catch the elder woman’s eyes, he said slowly:
“Mrs. Nesbit–I’m Kenyon’s father.”
He caught Laura’s hand in his own, and held her from stepping back. Laura did not speak. Mrs. Nesbit gazed blankly at the two and in the silence the little mantel clock ticked into their consciousnesses. Finally the elder woman, who had grown white as some old suspicion or fatal recollection flashed through her mind, asked in an unsteady voice: “And his mother?”
“His mother was Margaret Müller, Mrs. Nesbit,” answered the man.
Then anger glowed in the white face as Mrs. Nesbit rose and stepped toward the downcast man. “Do you mean to tell me you–” She did not finish, but began again, not noticing that the door behind her had let in her husband: “Do you mean to say that you have let me go on all these years nursing that–that, that–creature’s child and–”
“Yes, my dear,” said the Doctor, touching her arm, and taking her hand, “I have.” She turned on her husband her startled, hurt face and exclaimed, “And you, Jim–you too–you too?”
“What else could I do in honor, my dear? And it has been for the best.”