child again, my son, won’t you? My son, yes, who is becoming a man, but still my son, my friend as always. I’ll tell you now. It’s better that I should tell you. . . .”
Then he told him, very simply. . . .
And it was very easy, very simple to tell Addie, in quiet words. He told his boy that he had fallen in love with Mamma when she was the wife of another and that he had stolen Mamma’s love, stolen it from that other man. He told the story so humbly, so quietly and simply as though it meant nothing, making this confession to his child, and as though he were pouring out all his sufferings of the old days into the heart of a friend. They sat talking for a long time; and it did them both good. Then said Van der Welcke:
“Addie, go to Mamma now. She herself asked me to tell you everything. Go to her now and give her a kiss.”
The boy kissed him first, embraced him with throttling arms, with the grip of a friend’s embrace. Then he went out; and Van der Welcke, quietly smoking, listened to his footsteps on the stairs. But then Van der Welcke started, with a shock, reflected:
“What have I done? O my God, no, no, no! I ought not to have told him. . . .”
But the house remained very quiet. Constance was sitting alone, in her boudoir. Her head was bent under the light of the lamp, over her needlework, and her hair, changing so gently to its cloudy
