“Ah, Anthony,” said the other, “my heart was torn out when you were born; it was torn out and buried here.”

And to the wild eyes of Anthony it seemed as if the great body of Drew, so feared through the mountain-desert, was now enveloped with weakness, humbled by some incredible burden.

After that a mist obscured his eyes; he could not see more than an outline of the great shape before him; his throat contracted as if a hand gripped him there, and an odd tingling came at the tips of his fingers.  He moved forward.

“It is more than I dreamed,” he said hoarsely, as his foot planted firmly on the top of the grave, and he poised himself an instant before flinging himself on the grey giant.  “It is more than I dreamed for—­to face you—­alone!”

And a solemn, even voice answered him, “We are not alone.”

“Not alone, but the others are too far off to stop me.”

“Not alone, Anthony, for your mother is here between us.”

Like a fog under a wind, the mist swept from the eyes of Anthony; he looked out and saw that the face of the grey man was infinitely sad, and there was a hungry tenderness that reached out, enveloped, weakened him.  He glanced down, saw that his heel was on the mount of the grave; saw again the headstone and the time-blurred inscription:  “Here sleeps Joan, the wife of William Drew.  She chose this place for rest.”

A mortal weakness and trembling seized him.  The wind puffed against his face, and he went staggering back, his hand caught up to his eyes.

He closed his mind against the words which he had heard.

But the deep organ voice spoke again:  “Oh, boy, your mother!”

In the stupor which came over him he saw two faces:  the stern eyes of John Bard, and the dark, mocking beauty of the face which had looked down to him in John Bard’s secret room.  He lowered his hand from his eyes; he stared at William Drew, and it seemed to him that it was John Bard he looked upon.  Their names differed, but long pain had touched them with a common greyness.  And it seemed to Anthony that it was only a moment ago that the key turned in the lock of John Bard’s secret room, the hidden chamber which he kept like Bluebeard for himself, where he went like Bluebeard to see his past; only an instant before he had turned the key in that lock, the door opened, and this was the scene which met his eyes—­the grave, the blurred tombstone, and the stern figure beyond.

“Joan,” he repeated; “your wife—­my mother?”

He heard a sob, not of pain, but of happiness, and knew that the blue eyes of Sally Fortune looked out to him from the doorway of the house.

The low voice, hurried now, broke in on him.

“When I married Joan, John Bard fled from the range; he could not bear to look on our happiness.  You see, I had won her by chance, and he hated me for it.  If you had ever seen her, Anthony, you would understand.  I crossed the mountains and came here and built this house, for your mother was like a wild bird, Anthony, and I did not dare to let men near her; then a son was born, and she died giving him birth.  Afterward I lived on here, close to the place which she had chosen herself for rest.  And I was happy because the boy grew every day into a more perfect picture of his dead mother.