“You, Buddy?—­I’m mighty glad,” said the man; and when he held out his arms the boy flung himself on his knees beside the seat and buried his face in the cushions.

“Is she—­is she going to die?” he asked; when the dreadful words could be found and spoken.

“We’re hoping for the best, Buddy, son.  It’s some sort of a stroke, the doctor says; it took her yesterday morning, and she hasn’t been herself since.  Did somebody telegraph to you?”

Tom rocked his head on the cushion.  How could he add to the blackness of darkness by telling his miserable story of disgrace?  Yet it had to be done, and surely no hapless penitent in the confessional ever emptied his soul with more heartfelt contrition or more bitter remorse.

Caleb Gordon listened, with what inward condemnings one could only guess from his silence.  It was terrible!  If his father would strike him, curse him, drive him out of the house, it would be easier to bear than the stifling silence.  But when the words came finally they were as balm poured into an angry wound.

“There, there, Buddy; don’t take on so.  You’re might’ nigh a man, now, and the sun’s still risin’ and settin’ just the same as it did before you tripped up and fell down.  And it’ll go on risin’ and settin’, too, long after you and me and all of us have quit goin’ to bed and gettin’ up by it.  If it wasn’t for your poor mammy—­”

“That’s it—­that’s just it,” groaned Tom.  “It would kill her, even if she was well.”

“Nev’ mind; you’re here now, and I reckon that’s the main thing.  If she gets up again, of course she’ll have to know; but we won’t cross that bridge till we come to it.  And Buddy, son, whatever happens, your old pappy ain’t goin’ to believe that you’ll be the first Gordon to die in the gutter.  You’ve got better blood in you than what that calls for.”

Tom felt the lightening of his burden to some extent; but beyond was the alternative of suffering, or causing suffering.  He had never realized until now how much he loved his mother; how large a place she had filled in his life, and what a vast void there would be when she was gone.  He was yet too young and too self-centered to know that this is the mother-cross:  to live for love and to be crowned and enthroned oftenest in memory.

For days,—­days which brought back the boyhood agony of the time when he had believed himself to be Ardea’s murderer,—­he went softly about the house, sharing, with his father and his uncle, the watch in the sick-room; doing what little there was to be done in dumb hopelessness, and beating at times on the brazen gates of Heaven in sheer despair.  There was no answer to his prayers; in his inmost soul he knew there would not be; but even in this the eternal query assailed him.  Was it for lack of faith that no whisper of reply came from the unseen world beyond the veil?  Or was it only because there was no ear to hear, no voice to answer?  He could not tell.  He made sure he was doomed to live and die, buffeting with these submerging waves of doubt—­doubt of himself on one hand, and of God on the other.