accounted for Dick's mother--Elizabeth Thornton--not knowing of it.

"It seems that there had been an alliance between John Travers and--and
Dick's mother, and it had been terminated some time before he met me, by
mutual consent. There was the child--Dick. The mother took him. There was
no question of money: there was enough for them, but she had told John
that should anything arise, such as illness or disaster, she would call
upon him. They had sworn that to each other.

"Well, my own baby came a year after my marriage and died a month later.
When I was least able to bear the shock, the call came from Elizabeth
Thornton. John had to tell me. I shall never forget his face as he did
it. I realized that his chief concern was for me, and even in all the
wreck and ruin I could but honour him for his bravery and sincerity. I
think he believed I would understand, but I never did; I never shall. The
shock was more surprise than moral resentment. I could not believe at
first that such a thing could possibly happen to--one of my own. I felt
as if a plague had fallen upon me, and I shrank from every eye, from
every touch with the world.

"Doctor Ledyard, you can understand, I hope, but John Travers was not a
bad man, and that girl, Dick's mother, was good. Yes; that's the only
word to use, strange as it seems to me even after all these years. You
see, she was not a hornbill. She came in touch with life at first hand;
she took from life what she wanted; she had, what were to me, unheard-of
ideas about love and the free gift of self, and yet she never meant to
hurt any one; and she had kept herself, amid all the confusion, the
gentlest and sweetest of souls.

"When she sent for John she was dying and she did not know what to do