Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/38

 Dresden china urns, did you? Of course not. I am asking you merely as a matter of form."

She returned to the room in which Edward waited for her, as a condemned man waits for his executioner.

"The servants," she said, "know nothing about the urn. It was not broken when I went away. I come back and find it broken. No one has been in this room, my little son, but you."

She seated herself and beckoned him to approach.

"It will be best for you," she said, "to tell the truth—the whole truth now."

Once more the gentle, wounded eyes were lifted to hers. And in a voice half strangled with fear, Edward once more denied all knowledge of how the urn came to be broken.

There was "One Above" with whom Mrs. Eaton was often in communication and always on terms of perfect understanding. To that One she now lifted her hands and her face. It was as if she were entreating Him not to miss, not to miss for one moment the horrible trial to which she was being subjected, and the more than human patience with which she was supporting it.

In a paroxysm of fear Edward had crept close to his mother. He now flung his arms about the crinkling silks which covered her lower extremites