There was a veiled expression in Peter\'s eyes that evening when he met his mother. Passion was exhausted. He divined already that Miranda was irrecoverable, that pursuit was useless. He now clearly understood how and why she had suffered. His late agony in her room she had many times endured, looking in his letters for a passion not yet illumined, eager to find that he needed her, but finding always that she lived in a palace of cloud. He saw now that Miranda\'s love had never been the dreaming ecstasy from which he himself had just awakened. He remembered and understood what he had merely accepted as characteristic of her turbulent spirit—sudden fits of petulance, occasions when without apparent reason she had flung savagely away from him. There were other things which thrilled him now, as when her arms tightened about his neck, and she answered his light caress with urgent kisses.

Peter\'s mother gave him a note in Miranda\'s hand:

    "Peter,—We are going to Canada, and I am not going to write to you. I think, Peter, you are only a boy, and one day you will find out whether you really loved me. I am older than[Pg 74] you. I shall not come back to you, because you are going to be rich, and your friends cannot be my friends. If you had answered my last letter, perhaps I could not have done this. But it is better."

When Peter had finished reading he saw that his mother was watching him. He was learning to notice things. His mother, too, he had never really regarded except in relation to himself. Yet she had seen unfold the tale of his passion. She, too, had been affected. He passed her the letter, and waited as she read.

"You know, mother, what this means?" he asked, shyly moved to confide in her.

"Yes, Peter, I think I do," she answered, glad of his trust.

Peter bent eagerly towards her. "Can you tell me where they have gone?"

Mrs. Paragon gently denied him:

"No one knows. They left very quickly. Mr. Smith owed some money."

It pained her so sordidly to touch Peter\'s tragedy.

"He ran away?" concluded Peter, squarely facing it.

Mrs. Paragon bent her head. Peter tried to say something. He wanted to tell his mother how suddenly precious to him was her knowledge and understanding. But he broke off and his[Pg 75] mouth trembled. In a moment she had taken him as a child.

At last she spoke to him again, wisely and bravely:

"Try to put all this away," she pleaded. "You are too young. I want you to be happy with your friends."

She paused shyly, a little daunted by the thought in her mind. Then she quietly continued:

"I don\'t want you to think yet of women."

She continued to urge him:

"Life is so full of things. You think now only of this disappointment, but, ............