honesty in her, said: 'Yes, tell Lady Jocelyn all.'

'And then, Evan, you will never need to go.'

They separated. The deep-toned sentence sang in Evan's heart. Rose and
her mother were of one stamp. And Rose might speak for her mother. To
take the hands of such a pair and be lifted out of the slough, he thought
no shame: and all through the hours of the morning the image of two
angels stooping to touch a leper, pressed on his brain like a reality,
and went divinely through his blood.

Toward mid-day Rose beckoned to him, and led him out across the lawn into
the park, and along the borders of the stream.

'Evan,' she said, 'shall I really speak to Mama?'

'You have not yet?' he answered.

'No. I have been with Juliana and with Drummond. Look at this, Evan.'
She showed a small black speck in the palm of her hand, which turned out,
on your viewing it closely, to be a brand of the letter L. 'Mama did
that when I was a little girl, because I told lies. I never could
distinguish between truth and falsehood; and Mama set that mark on me,
and I have never told a lie since. She forgives anything but that. She
will be our friend; she will never forsake us, Evan, if we do not deceive
her. Oh, Evan! it never is of any use. But deceive her, and she cannot
forgive you. It is not in her nature.'

Evan paused before he replied: 'You have only to tell her what I have
told you. You know everything.'