He saw that hard, ruddy, ironic face. He saw that gallant chin. He heard those light, reckless, defiant tones.

“I’m with you, Mother!” he thought, while his lip trembled. “I’m with you, whatever any of them say! Good or evil, I’m with you!”

Miss Gault paid no attention to this stiffening of the figure at her side. Her thoughts too, it seemed, had wandered to the roots of the past.

“William! William!” she groaned aloud. “I’d have held you. I’d have peaked and pined to hold you. I’d have slaved for you, watched for you, wasted for you, and always forgiven you!”

Completely unaware of the effect of her words upon her companion, she turned her great wild-horse eyes, the whites of which showed desperate in the sunshine, from Wolf to the grave and back again from the grave to Wolf.