“It seems to me,” he spoke thoughtfully, “that you should stand by your guns.  You did what you did from the highest motives; you have succeeded marvellously—­why upset the kettle of fish, my dear?”

Doris’s face softened.

“I think if I had committed murder,” she said, “you would try to defend the deed.”

“I certainly would!”

They smiled into each other’s eyes at this.

“But, David, I am afraid to tell Nancy.  Somehow I think the doubt would hurt her more cruelly than the real truth might have.  It has always been the not knowing that mattered to Nan—­unless what was to be known was a happy thing.  Merry was like that, you remember.”

“Then why run a risk with Nancy, Doris?”

Martin had the look in his eyes with which he scanned the face of a patient who could not be depended upon to describe his own symptoms.

“I—­think—­Ken should know.”

“What?”

“Why—­why—­what there is to know!”

“Just muddle him.  Nancy would be the same girl, but he’d get to puzzling over her and tagging ideas on her—­and to what end, Doris?  The girl has the right to her own path and you have, by the grace of God, pushed obstacles from before her, in heaven’s name give her fair play and don’t—­flax out at this stage of the game.”

“But, Davey, if in the future anything should disclose the truth, might Ken not resent?”

“I don’t see why he should.  When the hour struck you could call him into the family circle and share the news.  By that time he’d feel secure in his own right about Nancy.”

“I’m not afraid of, or for, Joan, Davey.”  Doris lifted her head proudly.  “And, David, I want to tell you now that my coming to The Gap was more on the children’s account than my own.  I have always felt that here, if anywhere, the truth might be exposed.  At first I was anxious; fearful yet hopeful.  I know now that The Gap has no suspicions, and I am more and more confident that George Thornton has passed from our lives.”

“Very good!” Martin sat up and bent forward in order to take Doris’s hands in his own.

“My dear,” he said, gently, “have you never thought that—­Nancy is—­your own?”

“Yes, Davey, I have grown to believe it.  She is very like Meredith—­not in looks, but in her character and habits.  She is stronger, happier than Merry, and oh!  Davey, for that very reason I hesitate to touch the beautiful faith and love of the child.  I do not want her disillusioned.  It would kill her as it did Merry.”

“Then, again I caution against risks, especially when the odds are with Nancy, not against her.”

The fire burned low—­a mere twinkle in the white ashes, then David asked as one does ask a useless question: 

“Are those words over the fireplace, Doris?” He puckered his near-sighted eyes.

“I think so.  There are carvings and paintings everywhere through the house.  One of the Sisters did them.  This one is so blackened by smoke that it is all but destroyed—­some day I will see what can be done to restore it.”