“That’s it, David, there never was a reason, really, and I did not intend, at first, to give the impression—­I simply said nothing.  Things like this grow in silence until they are too big to handle.  It was the telling of plain half-truths that did the mischief—­and letting the conclusions of others pass.  Of course I did not hesitate with George Thornton, he mattered; the others did not seem to count—­no one but you, David.  I have felt I wronged your faith, somehow.”

Martin, at this, began to defend Doris.

“Oh, I don’t agree to that.  It was entirely your own affair.  You wrote to me while you were away about Meredith.  I realized how cut up you were, and God knows you had reason to be.  Until you needed me, I don’t see but what you had a right to act as you saw fit about the children.”

“David, I always need you.  It is because I need you so much that I have decency to keep my hands off!”

Martin’s brows drew close, his mouth looked stern, but he was again controlling the old, undying longing to possess the only woman he had ever loved, and shield her from herself!

Then he gave his prescription: 

“Doris, get rid of Mary.  Find a proper place for her and forget whatever doubts you may have.  Remember only her years of service; she gave the best she had.  Then send the children to Miss Phillips’.  Of course, you must write to Thornton.  Tell him as much or as little as you choose.  He’s rightfully in the game.  We’re all three playing with a dummy.”  How Doris blessed Martin for that “we three!” He had come into the game and, once in, Martin could be depended upon.

“You’ve run amuck among accepted codes,” he was saying with that curious chuckle of his, “and yet, by heaven! you seem to have established a divinely inspired one for the kids.”

“You think that, David?  You are not trying to comfort me?”

Martin got up.  He seemed suddenly in a hurry to be off.  He had given what he could to meet Doris’s need—­given it briefly, concisely, as was his way.

Doris brought his coat and held it for him—­her face lifted to his with that yearning in her eyes that always unnerved him.  It was the look of one who must offer an empty cup to another who thirsted.  Then she spoke, after all the silent years: 

“David, I have always loved you, but I am beginning to understand at last about love.  I had not the ‘call’ in my soul.  Merry had it, the mountain mother had it—­but it never came to me.  Without it, I dared not offer to pay the cost of marriage.  That would have been unjust to you.  I did realize that, but the deeper truth has only come recently.  I wonder if you can understand, dear, if I say now, even now, that I would be glad for you to marry and be happy—­as you should be?”

“Doris, I counted that all up years ago.  It did not weigh against you!” Martin’s voice was husky.

“Then, David, be my friend and the friend of my little children.  For their sakes, I implore your help along the way.”