It was nearly dusk when he reached the church and climbed the steps that led to the walled graveyard, elevated above the street-level.  Never had the spot looked so fair to him.  The white spire, piercing the blue sky, seemed almost to touch the slender new moon, with the evening star glimmering by her side.  The air was sweet with the breath of roses and honeysuckle, and the graves were deeply, intensely green.  Long he lay upon the one by the wall, near the head of which he had placed his white roses—­looking up at the silver spire and the silver star and the moon’s silver bow—­so long that he forgot the passage of time, and when he reached home and went in out of the night to the bright dining-room, blinking his great grey eyes to accustom them to the lamp-light, supper was over.

The keen eyes of John Allan looked sternly upon him from under their fierce brows.  The boy saw at once that his foster-father was very angry.

“Where have you been?” he demanded, harshly.

“Nowhere,” replied the boy.

“What have you been doing all this time?”

“Nothing,” was the answer.

“Nowhere?  Nothing?  Don’t nowhere and nothing me, Sir.  Those are the replies—­the lying replies—­of a boy who has been in mischief.  If you had not been where you shouldn’t have been, and doing as you shouldn’t have done, you would not be ashamed to tell.  Now, Sir, tell me at once, where you have been and what you have been doing?”

The boy grew pale, but made no reply, and in the eyes fixed on Mr. Allan’s face was a provokingly stubborn look.  The man’s wrath waxed warmer.  His voice rose.  In a tone of utter exasperation he cried, “Tell me at once, I say, or you shall have the severest flogging you ever had in your life!”

The boy grew paler still, and his eyes more stubborn.  A scowl settled upon his brow and a look of dogged determination about his mouth, but still he spoke not a word.

Mrs. Allan looked from one to the other of these two beings—­husband and son—­who made her heart’s world.  The evening was warm and she wore a simple white dress with low neck and short sleeves.  Anxiety clouded her lovely face, yet never had she looked more girlishly sweet—­more appealing; but the silent plea in her beautiful, troubled eyes was lost on John Allan, much as he loved her.

“Tell him, Eddie dear,” she implored.  “Don’t be afraid.  Speak up like a man!”

Still silence.

She walked over to the table where the boy sat before the untouched supper that had been saved for him, and dropped upon one knee beside him.  She placed her arm around him and drew him against her gentle bosom—­he suffering her, though not returning the caress.

“Tell me, Eddie, darling—­tell Mother,” she coaxed.

The grey eyes softened, the brow lifted.  “There’s nothing to tell, Mother,” he gently replied.

Mr. Allan rose from his chair.  “I’ll give you five minutes in which to find something to tell,” he exclaimed, shaking a trembling finger at the culprit; then stalked out of the room.