Nevertheless this suspense tried him.
He grew impatient.
"Damaris," he said, at last, "speak to me." "How can I speak to you when I don't understand," she answered gravely.
"Either you lie--which I should be sorry to accuse you of doing--or you tell me a very terrible thing, if, that is, I at all comprehend what you say .-- Are you not the son of Mrs.Faircloth, who lives at the inn out by the black cottages ?" "Yes, Lesbia Faircloth is my mother.

And I ask for no better.

She has squandered love upon me--squandered money, upon me too; but wisely and cleverly, with results.

Still--" he paused--"well, it takes two, doesn't it, to make a man?
One isn't one's mother's son only." "But Mrs.Faircloth is a widow," Damaris reasoned, in wondering directness.

"I have heard people speak of her husband.