“You do not know of what you talk,” Jane answered, her eyes blazing.  “She hates the past; hates everything connected with it; hates the very name of Barton Holt.  Never once has she mentioned it since her return.  She never loved Archie; she cared no more for him than a bird that has dropped its young out of its nest.  Besides, your plan is impossible.  Marriage does not condone a sin.  The power to rise and rectify the wrong lies in the woman.  Lucy has not got it in her, and she never will have it.  Part of it is her fault; a large part of it is mine.  She has lived this lie all these years, and I have only myself to blame.  I have taught her to live it.  I began it when I carried her away from here; I should have kept her at home and had her face the consequences of her sin then.  I ought to have laid Archie in her arms and kept him there.  I was a coward and could not, and in my fear I destroyed the only thing that could have saved her—­the mother-love.  Now she will run her course.  She’s her own mistress; no one can compel her to do anything.”

The captain raised his clenched hand: 

“Bart will, when he comes.”

“How?”

“By claimin’ the boy and shamin’ her before the world, if she don’t.  She liked him well enough when he was a disgrace to himself and to me, without a dollar to his name.  What ails him now, when he comes back and owns up like a man and wants to do the square thing, and has got money enough to see it through?  She’s nothin’ but a thing, if she knew it, till this disgrace’s wiped off’n her.  By God, Miss Jane, I tell you this has got to be put through just as Bart wants it, and quick!”

Jane stepped closer and laid her hand on the captain’s arm.  The look in her eyes, the low, incisive, fearless ring in her voice, overawed him.  Her courage astounded him.  This side of her character was a revelation.  Under their influence he became silent and humbled—­as a boisterous advocate is humbled by the measured tones of a just judge.

“It is not my friend, Captain Nat, who is talking now.  It is the father who is speaking.  Think for a moment.  Who has borne the weight of this, you or I?  You had a wayward son whom the people here think you drove out of your home for gambling on Sunday.  No other taint attaches to him or to you.  Dozens of other sons and fathers have done the same.  He returns a reformed man and lives out his life in the home he left.

“I had a wayward sister who forgot her mother, me, her womanhood, and herself, and yet at whose door no suspicion of fault has been laid.  I stepped in and took the brunt and still do.  I did this for my father’s name and for my promise to him and for my love of her.  To her child I have given my life.  To him I am his mother and will always be—­ always, because I will stand by my fault.  That is a redemption in itself, and that is the only thing that saves me from remorse.  You and I, outside of his father and mother, are the only ones living that know of his parentage.  The world has long since forgotten the little they suspected.  Let it rest; no good could come—­only suffering and misery.  To stir it now would only open old wounds and, worst of all, it would make a new one.”