She does understand him, and she understands his father better by understanding her son.' She said that, Mr.Courtland, and I felt that she had spoken one of the greatest truths of this mysterious life of ours.

Then she said, 'Herbert Courtland is a man who has lived with honor to himself, with honor to the memory of his mother, and of his sister, whom he loved.

He is a man, and he has not merely attained distinction in the world; if he is without fear, he is also without reproach; and ask him if he has not been strengthened in his fight with whatever of base may have risen up within him, being a man, from day to day, by the thought that his sister is one with him; that his purity of heart and of act is the purity of his mother and his sister, upon which no stain must ever come.' That was all she said, Mr.Courtland." There was a long pause after she had spoken.

He sat there with his head bent, his fingers interlaced.

He had his eyes fixed upon the floor.