He made a despairing gesture.

“—­or I am some one else, some one who was smuggled out of the mountains and given an identity that makes him a living lie.”

Always she had known that this might come some time, but always too she had seen David bearing the brunt of it.  He should bear it.  It was not of her doing or of her approving.  For years the danger of discovery had hung over her like a cloud.

“Do you know which?” he persisted.

“Yes, Dick.”

“Would you have the unbelievable cruelty not to tell me?”

She got up, a taut little figure with a dignity born of her fear and of her love for him.

“I shall not betray David’s confidence,” she said.  “Long ago I warned him that this time would come.  I was never in favor of keeping you in ignorance.  But it is David’s problem, and I cannot take the responsibility of telling you.”

He knew her determination and her obstinate loyalty.  But he was fairly desperate.

“You know that if you don’t tell me, I shall go to David?”

“If you go now you will kill him.”

“It’s as bad as that, is it?” he asked grimly.  “Then there is something shameful behind it, is there?”

“No, no, Dick.  Not that.  And I want you, always, to remember this.  What David did was out of love for you.  He has made many sacrifices for you.  First he saved your life, and then he made you what you are.  And he has had a great pride in it.  Don’t destroy his work of years.”

Her voice broke and she turned to go out, her chin quivering, but half way to the door he called to her.

“Aunt Lucy—­” he said gently.

She heard him behind her, felt his strong arms as he turned her about.  He drew her to him and stooping, kissed her cheek.

“You’re right,” he said.  “Always right.  I’ll not worry him with it.  My word of honor.  When the time comes he’ll tell me, and until it comes, I’ll wait.  And I love you both.  Don’t ever forget that.”

He kissed her again and let her go.

But long after David had put down his prayer-book that night, and after the nurse had rustled down the stairs to the night supper on the dining-room table, Lucy lay awake and listened to Dick’s slow pacing of his bedroom floor.

He was very gentle with David from that time on, and tried to return to his old light-hearted ways.  On the day David was to have his first broiled sweetbread he caught the nurse outside, borrowed her cap and apron and carried in the tray himself.

“I hope your food is to your taste, Doctor David,” he said, in a high falsetto which set the nurse giggling in the hall.  “I may not be much of a nurse, but I can cook.”

Even Lucy was deceived at times.  He went his customary round, sent out the monthly bills, opened and answered David’s mail, bore the double burden of David’s work and his own ungrudgingly, but off guard he was grave and abstracted.  He began to look very thin, too, and Lucy often heard him pacing the floor at night.  She thought that he seldom or never went to the Wheelers’.