When she returned from Sir Anthony’s to her mother’s lodgings, she
found Herminia, very pale, in the sitting-room, waiting for her. Her
eyes were fixed on a cherished autotype of a Pinturicchio at
Perugia—Alan’s favourite picture. Out of her penury she had bought it.
It represented the Madonna bending in worship over her divine child,
and bore the inscription: “_Quem genuit adoravit._” Herminia loved that
group. To her it was no mere emblem of a dying creed, but a type of the
eternal religion of maternity. The Mother adoring the Child! ’Twas
herself and Dolly.
“Well?” Herminia said interrogatively, as her daughter entered, for she
half feared the worst.
“Well,” Dolores answered in a defiant tone, blurting it out in sudden
jerks, the rebellion of a lifetime finding vent at last. “I’ve been to
my grandfather, my father’s father; and I’ve told him everything; and
it’s all arranged: and I’m to take his name; and I’m to go and live
with him.”
“Dolly!” the mother cried, and fell forward on the table with her face
in her hands. “My child, my child, are you going to leave me?”
“It’s quite time,” Dolly answered, in a sullen, stolid voice. “I can’t
stop here, of course, now I’m almost grown-up and engaged to be
married, associating any longer with such a woman as you have been. No
right-minded girl who respected herself could do it.”
Herminia rose and faced her. Her white lips grew livid. She had counted
on every element of her martyrdom—save one; and this, the blackest and
fiercest of all, had never even occurred to her. “Dolly,” she cried,
“oh, my daughter, you don’t know what you do! You don’t know how I’ve
loved you! I’ve given up my life for you. I thought when you came to
woman’s estate, and learned what was right and what wrong, you would
indeed rise up and call me blessed. And now—oh, Dolly, this last blow
is too terrible. It will kill me, my darling. I can’t go on outliving
it.”
“You will,” Dolly answered. “You’re strong enough and wiry enough to
outlive anything. . . . But I wrote to Walter from Sir Anthony’s this
morning, and told him I would wait for him if I waited forever. For, of
course, while _you_ live, I couldn’t think of marrying him. I couldn’t
think of burdening an honest man with such a mother-in-law as you are!”
Herminia could only utter the one word, “Dolly!” It was a heart-broken
cry, the last despairing cry of a wounded and stricken creature.