The mystery clinging to Fledra haloed her for Everett beyond the point of interest.
"Ann," he said suddenly, "you haven't told me much about those children--I mean of their past lives."
"We know so little," she replied reservedly.
"But more than you have told me. Have they parents living?"
"A father, I think," murmured Ann.
"And no mother?"
"No."
"Do you know where their father is?"
"He lives near Ithaca, so we're told." After a silence she continued, "We want them to forget--to forget, ourselves, all about their former lives. I asked Horace if he wanted to place them in schools; but he didn't want them to go away. As long as they are as good as they have been, they're welcome to stay. Poor little things, they're nothing more than babies, not yet sixteen!"
"The girl looks older," commented Everett.
"That's because she's suffered more than most girls do. I'm afraid it'll be a long time before Floyd is completely well."
The conversation then drifted to that happy spring day when they would be married.