"Listen to me," he said huskily, taking both her warm hands in his,
"I want to tell you something. Say that I WAS weak enough to forget
all that, your money and my poverty, your life and my life,
everything that puts you as far above me as the moon and stars; say
that I could do that--although I hope it's not true--even then--even
then I'm not free, Sidney. There is Hetty, you know; there is
Billy's mother--"

There was a silence. Sidney slowly freed her hands, laid one upon
her heart as unconsciously as a hurt child, and the other upon his
shoulder. Her troubled eyes searched his face.

"Barry," she said with a little effort, "have I been mistaken in
thinking Billy's mother was dead?"

"Everyone thinks so," he answered with a quick rush of words that
showed how great the relief of speech was. "Even up in Hetty's home
town, Plumas, they think so. I wrote home that Hetty had left me,
and they drew their own conclusions. It was natural enough; she was
never strong. She was always restless and unhappy, wanted to go on
the stage. She did go on the stage, you know; her mother advised it,
and she--just left me. We were in New York, then; Bill was a little
shaver; I was having a hard time with a new job. It was an awful
time! After a few months I brought Bill back here--he wasn't very
well--and then I found that everyone thought Hetty was dead. Then
her mother wrote me, and said that Hetty had taken a stage-name, and
begged me to let people go on thinking she was dead, and, more for
the kid's sake than Hetty's, I let things stand. But Hetty's in
California now; she and her mother live in San Francisco; she is