The answer was low but distinct.  It was like a knife thrust to the doctor.  In all the eight years in which he had fathered Ned’s sons, both before and since his brother’s death, never once to his knowledge had either one lied to him, even to save himself discomfort, censure or punishment.  With all their boyish vagaries and misdeeds, it had been the one thing he could count on absolutely, their unflinching, invariable honesty.  Yet, surely as the June sun was shining outside, Ted had lied to him just now.  Why?  Rash twenty was too young to go its way unchallenged and unguided.  He was responsible for the lad whose dead father had committed him to his charge.

Only a few weeks before his death Ned had written with curious prescience, “If I go out any time, Phil, I know you will look after the children as I would myself or better.  Keep your eye on Ted especially.  His heart is in the right place, but he has a reckless devil in him that will bring him and all of us to grief if it isn’t laid.”

Doctor Holiday went over and laid a hand on each of the lad’s hunched shoulders.

“Look at me, Ted,” he commanded gently.

The old habit of obedience strong in spite of his twenty years, Ted raised his eyes, but dropped them again on the instant as if they were lead weighted.

“That is the first time you ever lied to me, I think, lad,” said the doctor quietly.

A quiver passed over the boy’s face, but his lips set tighter than ever and he pulled away from his uncle’s hands and turned, staring out of the window at a rather dusty and bedraggled looking hydrangea on the lawn.

“I wonder if it was necessary,” the quiet voice continued.  “I haven’t the slightest wish to be hard on you.  I just want to understand.  You know that, son, don’t you?”

The boy’s head went up at that.  His gaze deserted the hydrangea, for the first time that day, met his uncle’s, squarely if somewhat miserably.

“It isn’t that, Uncle Phil.  You have every right to come down on me.  I hadn’t any business to have the car out at all, much less take fool chances with it.  But honestly I have told you all—­all I can tell.  I did lie to you just now.  I wasn’t alone.  There was a—­a girl with me.”

Ted’s face was hot again as he made the confession.

“I see,” mused the doctor.  “Was she hurt?”

“No—­that is—­not much.  She hurt her shoulder some and cut her head a bit.”  The details came out reluctantly as if impelled by the doctor’s steady eyes.  “She telephoned me today she was all right.  It’s a miracle we weren’t both killed though.  We might have been as easy as anything.  You said just now nothing you could say would make me have sense about speeding.  I guess what happened last night ought to knock sense into me if anything could.  I say, Uncle Phil—­”

“Well?” as the boy paused obviously embarrassed.

“If you don’t mind I’d rather not say anything more about the girl.  She—­I guess she’d rather I wouldn’t,” he wound up confusedly.