THE SECOND MOTHER.
When we are waiting for the call to do something--to say something--of
cardinal importance; something that will affect the whole of our life,
all that remains of it: when we are uncertain what will happen after
or before we have said or done that something; then the very air round
us is charged with the uncertainty of the time. Even the hall and
the staircase of the Hôtel Métropole, when Molly entered that humble
guest-house, seemed trembling with anxiety. Her cousin's rooms were
laden with anxiety as with electricity.
"Come in, Molly," said Alice. "No, I am not any better; I try to rest,
but I cannot. I keep saying to myself, 'I shall get my son back; I
shall get my son back.' How long shall I have to wait?"
"I hope--to-morrow. Dick has prepared a way to tell him."
"Will he be ready to go away with his own mother, to America, do you
think, Molly dear?"
"Perhaps. But you must remember. He has his own friends and his own
occupations. And we don't know yet----"
"He will be glad--oh, how glad!--to get his true mother back. He's
a handsome boy, isn't he, Molly? As tall as his father--Dick isn't
nearly so tall--and stout and strong, like my family. He's like Cousin
Charles."
"Don't tell him so, Alice."
"Why not? His face is his father's--and his voice. Oh, Molly! will he
come to-morrow?"
"Dick was going to send his letter to-morrow." Her heart sank as
she thought of the contents of that letter, which would reach its
destination, not as a peace-offering or a message of love at all. The
poor mother! Would her son fly to her arms on the wings of affection?
Their discourse was interrupted or diverted--there was but one topic
possible that day--by the arrival of Sir Robert Steele.
As a skilful diplomatist, he began with the second of the two mothers
where the first ended. That is to say, he sat down beside her, took
her hand in his, and held it, talking in a soft, persuasive voice.
"We are such old--old friends, dear lady," he began--"friends of four
and twenty years--that I have taken a great liberty. That is--I am
sure you will forgive me--I have consented to act as ambassador on a
delicate mission."
"He comes from Lady Woodroffe," thought Molly, "or perhaps from
Humphrey."
"Yes," the doctor went on, his voice being like the melodious cooing
of the stock-dove--"yes. As a friend of the past, I thought you
would forgive this interference. Things have changed, with both of
us, since that time, have they not? I was then at the bottom of the
profession--I am now at the top. I was then a sixpenny doctor--fill
your own bottle with physic, you know; with a red lamp, and a
dispensary open from six to ten every evening. Now I am what you know.
You are a great lady--rich--a leader. I am sure you sometimes think
that 'not more than others we deserve'----"
"I do, doctor, constantly. But the loss of my boy has poisoned
everything. Yet now, I hope----"
"Now, I promise and assure you. This day--this evening----"
She fell back on her pillow.
"I will not let you see him," he said, "unless you keep calm. Don't
agitate yourself. Shall I go on? Will you keep as quiet as possible?
Now, I've got a great deal to say. Lie down--so. We must remember our
present position, and what we owe to ourselves. Think of that. There
are three of us concerned."
"Oh!" cried Molly. "Then you own it at last!"
"First, there is Lady Woodroffe. Exposure of this business will ruin
that lady."
"She deserves to be ruined," said Molly.
"Because she has taken a poor child and brought it up in luxury? Let
us not inflame the situation by hard words."
"I don't wish to be hard on her," said Alice. "But she said my
baby-clothes were hers."
"Forgive her, Mrs. Haveril. We must all forgive. Before I leave you
to-day I must take your forgiveness with me."
"Oh, Sir Robert!" said Molly. "She will forgive you too, if you
restore her son."
"As for myself, the second of the three. It will be a pleasing thing
for the world to read, and for me to confess, that I was the person
who found the child and arranged the bargain. And that afterwards,
when I discovered that for 'adoption' I must read 'substitution,' I
held my tongue until proofs had been discovered which rendered further
silence impossible. I am an Ex-President of the College of Physicians;
I am a Fellow of the Royal Society; I have written learned works on
points of pathology; I am a leader in practice; I am a K.C.B. It will
be a very delightful exposure for me, will it not?"
"Well," said Molly, "but you might have told us when you found it out."
"As for yourself, my dear madam, I believe that in the States they are
curious about rich people."
"They just want to know even what you eat and drink."
"Then consider--you must--the effect upon your own reputation,
which will be produced when you have to confess that you sold your
child--sold: it is an ugly word, is it not?--sold your child for fifty
pounds."
"Why should the story come to light at all?" asked Molly.
"There are secrets in most families. In my position I learn many. I
certainly considered this as one of them. The only reason why this
must come to light is that the young man must lay down his title. His
name fortunately remains unchanged."
"Who cares for a title?" asked Molly.
"You would, young lady, if you had one. An hereditary title, however,
cannot be laid down at will. It belongs to a man--to his father, to
his eldest son. To lay it down would require explanation. And there is
no other explanation possible except one--that the man is not the son
of his putative father."
"Doctor," said Alice, "I don't care what the world says. I shall not
listen to what the world says. I want my boy."
"Very well. You shall have your boy, if you like. But we must have a
little talk first about him--about your son."
"Ah! my son."
"Now, dear lady, I want all your sympathy." He pressed her hand again.
"Your sympathy and your affection and your self-denial, even your
self-effacement. I have to call upon all these estimable qualities. I
have to ask of your most sacred affection--your maternal affection--a
self-sacrifice of the highest, the most noble, the most generous kind."
He looked into his patient's eyes. As yet there was no mesmeric
response. Alice was only wondering what all this talk meant. If there
was any other expression in her eyes, it was the hungry look of a
mother bereft of her children. The doctor let her hand drop.
"I shall succeed," he said. "Of that I have no doubt. But I fear my
own power of presenting the case with the force which it demands."
He then, with as much emphasis as if he were on the stage, produced a
manuscript from his pocket, and unfolded it with an eye to effect.
"I received this," he said, "half an hour ago. It is Lady Woodroffe's
confession. It was written in the dead of night--last night. If the
imagination of the writer can be trusted, it was written by order of
her dead husband, who stood beside her while she wrote. The intensity
of feeling with which it was written is proved by that belief."
"Ghosts!" said Molly, contemptuously. "Stuff with her ghosts!"
"My dear young lady"--the doctor felt that his ghostly machinery
had failed--"will you kindly not interrupt? I am speaking with Mrs.
Haveril on a subject which is more important to all concerned than you
can understand. Pray do not interrupt."
But the impression which might have been produced by the vision of
the dead husband was ruined by that interruption. If a ghost does not
produce his impression at the outset, he never does.
Alice received the confession coldly. "Am I to read it," she asked.
She opened it and read it through. What it contained we know very
well. It was written quite simply, stating the plain facts without
comment. The concluding words were as follows:--
"My husband never had the least suspicion. The boy's real
nature, which is selfish and callous and heartless, did not
reveal itself to him. To me it was, almost from the outset,
painfully apparent. He is so entirely, in every respect,
the opposite of his supposed father, that I have sometimes
trembled lest a suspicion should arise. For my own part,
I confess that I have never felt the least tenderness or
affection for the boy. It has been a continual pain to me
that I had to pretend any. So far as that is concerned,
I shall be much relieved when I have to pretend no more.
Whatever steps may be taken by his real mother, they will
at least rid me of a continual and living reproach. I do
not know how much affection and gratitude his real mother
may expect from such a son in return for depriving him of
his family and his position, and exchanging his cousins
in the House of Lords for relations with the gutter. I
wish her, however, joy and happiness from his love and
gratitude."
"Molly dear," said Alice, "the woman confesses she took the child and
passed it off upon the world for her own. What do you say now, doctor?"
"If necessary, I am ready to acknowledge publicly that Lady Woodroffe
is the person who bought your child. However, when you came to me
about it, I did not know that fact. I found it out afterwards by a
remarkable chance. But she confesses, which is all that you desire."
"She confesses! Now--at last! Oh, Molly, I shall get back the boy! He
will be my own son again--not that horrible woman's son any more! Oh,
my own son! my own son!"
"The other mother," the doctor murmured. Molly heard him, but
understood not what he meant. "Will you, dear madam, read the latter
part of the document once more, that part of it beginning, 'My husband
never had any suspicion.' Perhaps Miss Molly will read it aloud."
Molly did so. As she read it she understood the meaning of these
words, "the other mother." She thought of Humphrey, with his cold
disdainful eyes, his shrinking from display, his pride of birth, his
contempt of the common herd, and of this warm motherly heart, natural
and spontaneous, careless of form and reticence, which was waiting
for him, and her heart sank for pity. The sham mother, glad at last
to get rid of the pretence; her own lover Dick, eager to pull down
the pretender, and full of revenge; the pretender himself maddened
with rage and shame; and the poor mother longing in vain for one word
of tenderness and kindness. Molly's heart sank low with pity. What
tenderness, what kindness, would Humphrey have for the mother who had
come to deprive him of everything that he valued?
"I have come here this afternoon," the doctor went on, "as a friend of
both mothers. On the part of Lady Woodroffe, I have absolutely nothing
to propose. She puts the case unreservedly in your hands. Whatever
steps you take, she will accept. It remains, therefore, for you,
madam, to do what you think best."
"I want my boy," she repeated doggedly. "So long as I get him, I don't
care what happens."
"That is, of course, the one feeling which underlies everything. I
will, if you like, see him in your name."
"Dick was going to write to him as the son of Anthony Woodroffe," said
Molly.
"I know his proposals. We have to consider, however, the possible
effect which the discovery of the truth will produce upon this
unfortunate--most unfortunate--young man."
"Why is he unfortunate?" asked his mother jealously. "He will be
restored to his own mother."
"I am going to tell you why. Meantime, you will agree with me that
it is most important that the communication of the truth must not
embitter this young man, at the outset, against his mother."
"No, no. He must not be set against me."
"Quite so. Dick proposes, I understand, to address a letter to him
as the son of the late Mr. Anthony Woodroffe--better known as John
Anthony--and inviting him to pay certain liabilities. As to the wisdom
of that step, I have no doubt. It can produce no other effect than to
fill him with rage and bitterness against all concerned, all--every
one--without exception."
He shook a warning finger at one after the other.
"But he must know," said Molly.
"Perhaps. In that case the subject must be approached with the
greatest delicacy. Dick's method is to begin with a bludgeon."
"We must think of his mother first," said Molly. "We have been working
all along for his mother."
"My dear young lady, you do not understand the situation. Because
we must think first of his mother, and for no other reason, we must
advance with caution. Had we not to consider the mother, there would
be no reason for delicacy at all. And now, if you will not interrupt,
I will go on."
The warning was now necessary, because the time had arrived for the
final appeal. If that failed, anything might happen.
"We must consider, dear madam, the character, in the first place,
of your son, and in the next place, the conditions of his education
and position. As regards his character, he has inherited the artistic
nature of his father, to begin with. That is shown in everything he
does in his music and musical composition."
"I have heard him sing a song of his own composition," said Molly. "It
had neither meaning nor melody; he said that it only appealed to the
higher culture."
"Once more"--but he spoke in vain--"I say, then, that he has inherited
his father's artistic nature. He sings and plays; he paints----"
"Landscapes of impossible colour," said Molly.
"And writes verses. He has a fine taste in the newer arts, such as
decoration, bookbinding, furniture----"
"And champagne."
"All these qualities he inherits from his father, with, I imagine,
a certain impatience which, when opinions differ, also, I expect,
distinguished his father. From his mother he seems to inherit, if I
may say so in her presence, tenacity, which may become obstinacy, and
strong convictions or feelings, which may possibly degenerate into
prejudice. His mother's softer qualities--her depth of affection, her
warm sympathies--will doubtless come to the front when his nature,
still partly undeveloped, receives its final moulding under the hands
of love."
All this was very prettily put, and presented the subject in an
engaging light. Molly, however, shook her head, incredulous, as one
who ought to know, if any one could know, what had been the outcome
of that final moulding under the hands of love.
"This is his character," the doctor went on blandly. "This is the
present character as it has been developed from the raw material which
we handed over to Lady Woodroffe four and twenty years ago. Next,
consider his education."
"Why?" asked his mother. "Hasn't he had his schooling?"
"More schooling than you think. He has been taught that his father
was a most distinguished Indian officer, in whom his son could take
the greatest pride; that his mother belonged to an ancient Scotch
family, his grandfather being the thirteenth baron, and his uncle the
fourteenth; he was taught that there is no inheritance so valuable
as that of ancient family; as a child he imbibed a pride of birth
which is almost a religion; indeed, I doubt if he has any other. His
school education and his associates helped him to consider himself as
belonging to a superior caste, and the rest of the world as outsiders.
This prejudice is now rooted in him. If he had to abandon this
belief----"
"But he must abandon it," said Molly. "To-morrow he becomes an
outsider."
"When you parted with your boy, you gave him, without knowing what
you were doing, statesmen and captains, great lords and barons
that belong to history, even kings and queens, for ancestors. Now,
without warning--how could one warn a young man of such a thing?--you
suddenly rob him of all these possessions. You give him for a father,
a worthless scoundrel, to use plain language--a man whose record is
horrible and shameful, a deceiver and deserter of women, a low-class
buffoon, a fellow who met with the end which he deserved in a
workhouse, after a final exhibition of himself as a sandwich-man at
one and twopence a day. The mere thought of such a father is enough to
reduce this unfortunate young man to madness. And for other relations,
I repeat, you offer him, in place of his present cousins, who are
gentlefolk of ancient birth, with all that belongs to that possession,
such humble--perhaps such unworthy--people as Dick sums up under such
titles as 'the pew-opener,' 'the small draper,' and 'the mendicant
bankrupt.' Can you imagine Humphrey, with his pride of birth, calling
upon the Hackney draper, and taking tea with the pew-opener?"
"They are my cousins, too, Sir Robert," said Molly. "And I get along
without much trouble about them."
"Yours? Very likely. Why not?" he replied impatiently. "You are used
to them. You were born to them. Sir Humphrey was not." He turned
again to Alice. "Have you considered these things? You must consider
them--in pity to your son--in pity to yourself."
Alice made no reply.
"Your son will be crushed, beaten down, humiliated to the lowest, by
this revelation. Ask yourself how he will reward the people who have
caused the discovery. Will he reward the hand which inflicts this
lifelong shame--it can be nothing less to him--with affection and
gratitude--or----? Finish the question for yourself."
Alice clasped her hands. Then she rose and bowed her head. "Lord, have
mercy upon me, miserable sinner!" she murmured.
Molly laid her arm round her waist.
"Take me to my room," she murmured.
Her room opened out of the sitting-room. Through the open door Sir
Robert saw her lying rather than kneeling at the bedside, her arms
thrown upon the counterpane. Molly stood over her, the tears streaming
down her cheeks.
The doctor beckoned the girl to leave her. "My dear"--his own eyes
were dim with an unaccustomed blurr; he could walk without emotion
through a hundred wards filled with suffering bodies, but he had never
walked the ward of suffering souls--"my dear, leave her for a while.
We are all miserable sinners, you and Dick, with your revengeful
thoughts, and I, and everybody. And the greatest sinner is the young
man himself."
"I did not think," Molly sobbed. "I only thought--we only wanted to
prove the case."
"It is the old, old parable. The false mother thinks only of herself;
the true mother thinks of her son. Solomon, I thank thee!"
The true mother came back. "Doctor, do what you will--what you can--I
will spare him. Let things remain exactly as they are."
He made no answer. He gazed upon her with troubled eyes.
"Tell me, doctor," she said, "what I must do."
"Will you do, then, what I advise?"
"If you will only save my son from his mother. It's a dreadful thing
to say. Doctor, I would rather lose the boy altogether than think that
he hates and despises his mother."
"When you put the child into my hands, when you undertook to make no
inquiry after him in the future--then you lost your child. I told
you so two months ago, when this inquiry began. Nothing but mischief
could come of it--mischief, and misery, and hatred, and shame, and
disappointment. This you could not understand. Now you do."
She sighed. "Yes, I understand."
"Our duty is plain--to hold our tongues. Humphrey will remain where he
is. It is a family secret, which will die with us."
"And is he--Dick's brother--to go on holding the place to which he has
no right?" asked Molly.
"There will be no change. It is a family secret," he repeated. "A
close family secret, never to be whispered even among yourselves."
"He must never know," said Alice. "Yet I must speak to him once; I
must hold his hand in mine once."
"If you can trust yourself. If you can only keep calm. Then, I will
bring him--this very afternoon. I will go to him. You shall tell him
briefly that he is like your son--that is all--your son which was
lost, you know. And, remember, there will not be the least show of
affection from him. Let Sir Humphrey--Sir Humphrey he must be--leave
you as he came--a changeling--with no suspicion of the fact."
CHAPTER THE LAST.
FORGIVENESS.
Alice lay patiently. It was done, then. Her punishment was ended; she
was to see her son for once--only for once.
"My dear," she said, "my dream will come true. I shall see my son--to
call him my son--for once--only for once. And then? But there will be
nothing left."
Dick came bursting in. "I've drawn up the case, and I've got the
advertisements ready. If by this time to-morrow the doctor makes no
sign, I shall act. Here's the case."
He drew out a document in foolscap, tied with red tape--a most
imposing document. "And here are the letters--
"'SIR,--I beg to inform you that the funeral of
your father, the late John Anthony Woodroffe, who died
yesterday, Tuesday, October 15th, will take place from that
institution at twelve o'clock on Friday. Your half-brother,
Mr. Richard Woodroffe, has ordered me to convey to you this
information.'
"I hope he'll like that," said Dick, rubbing his hands. "And here is
the second letter--
"'SIR,--I am requested by Mr. Richard Woodroffe to
inform you that your father, Mr. John Anthony Woodroffe,
has died in debt to a certain Mrs. Welwood, widow of a
grocer, of Lisson Grove. The amount is about £60. He
wishes to know whether you are prepared to join him in
paying off the liability. Your obedient servants.'
"I hope he will like that," said Dick. "And here is the advertisement--
"'Died. On Tuesday, the 13th, at the Marylebone Workhouse
Infirmary, John Anthony Woodroffe, father of Sir Humphrey
Woodroffe, baronet, aged 55.'
"I hope he will like that."
"There is something more for you," said Molly. "Lady Woodroffe
confesses. There is the paper."
"Confesses?" Dick snatched the paper, and read it through with a
hunter's sense of disappointment. "Well," he said, "I thought better
of her. I thought she would die game. Never trust appearances. Well,
this changes these matters. Instead of sending the letters and the
advertisement, I shall now go myself with the case and the confession,
and bring him to his----"
"No, Dick," said Molly. "There is to be no shame for him, and no
humiliation."
"_What?_"
"No shame for him at all. He is to be left in ignorance unless he has
guessed anything. We shall tell him nothing. All will go on as before."
"Oh, Molly! have we given in? With victory assured? Don't say that!"
"You don't understand, Dick. Everything is changed. It is now Lady
Woodroffe who would spare him nothing. It is his mother who would save
him from everything."
Dick looked at the pale woman lying on the sofa. Then he understood,
and a tear stood in his eye. 'Twas a tender heart. He went over to the
sofa and kissed her forehead.
"Forgive me," he said.
"Oh, Dick!" she murmured. "Would to God you were my son! As for him,
he is what they have made him."
* * * * *
They had made him grumpy and obstinate. At that moment the doctor was
urging upon him compliance with a simple thing.
"You want me to go to the rooms of the gardener man who insulted me?
I am to listen to some rubbish about his wife. What do I care about
his wife? I tell you, Sir Robert, this is trifling. I won't go, there;
tell them so. I won't go."
"Then, Sir Humphrey, I tell you plainly, Ruin stares you in the face.
Yes; the loss of everything in this world that you value--everything.
You will lose all. I cannot explain what this means. But you will have
letters to-morrow which will change your whole life--and all your
thoughts. They mean, I say, the loss of everything that you value."
"I don't believe a word----"
"You wanted to know what Mr. Haveril meant, what your mother meant,
what Miss Molly Pennefather meant. They meant Ruin--Ruin, and loss of
everything, Sir Humphrey--that and nothing else."
"Tell me more. Tell me why."
"I shall tell you no more. I shall leave it to your--to Richard
Woodroffe, whom you love so well. He will tell you."
The young man hesitated. "What do you want me to do?"
"You are to come with me to Mrs. Haveril's rooms; she will receive
you; she will make a communication to you. Whatever she says you are
to receive with courtesy--with courtesy, mind. That done, you may
return, and everything will go on as usual. You can then forget what
you heard. Are you ready? Very well."
"If that cad, the fiddler, is there----"
"Hark ye, Sir Humphrey, if you behave or speak like a cub and a cur,
I throw you over. By the Lord! I will have no mercy upon you. I will
tell you myself what it all means. Now!"
* * * * *
Molly waited, sitting beside Alice, who lay with closed eyes. Perhaps
she slept. Presently John Haveril came home. Molly told him what had
happened.
"Ay, ay," he said. "Let him come. Let Alice have her say. They've made
a cur of him between them. Let him come."
He sat down beside his wife, and whispered words of consolation and
of soothing. They would go home again--out of the atmosphere of
deception. They would be happy once more in their own home on the
Pacific slope.
"John," said Alice, "it was good of you to bring me over on the
strength of a dream, and a promise of a dream--to give over all your
work----"
"Nay, nay, lass. What is work compared with thee?"
"I shall see my son again. I have prayed for that. I did not pray,
John--I could not--for his love--that was gone. Yet I hoped. Now I
must be satisfied only to take his hands in mine."
"We will go home again--we will go home again."
"My dream said nothing about going home again." She was silent for a
while. "John," she said, "what was it you were going to tell Molly and
Dick?"
They were all three standing over her.
"Why," said John, "Alice had a fancy--because she loves you both--to
see you join hands--so."
Alice laid her thin hands across their joined hands, and her lips
moved.
"And I was to tell you both that I would not give you a single dollar
out of all the pile. You are happier without, she says. And so do I,"
he added.
It was a strange betrothal, with tears in the eyes of both.
At that moment arrived the doctor, with Humphrey. The young man
looked dark and lowering; his cheek was flushed. He glanced round the
room, bowed low to Alice, recognized Molly by a cold inclination, Mr.
Haveril by a nod, and Dick by a blank stare, which did not recognize
even his existence--the frequent employment of this mode of salutation
had made him greatly beloved by all outsiders.
"Ah," thought Dick, "if you knew what I've got in my pocket, you'd
change that look."
"Mrs. Haveril," said Sir Robert, "I have brought you Sir Humphrey
Woodroffe, at your request. I believe you have something to say to
him."
"Molly dear, give Sir Humphrey a chair near me--so. I want to tell
you, Sir Humphrey, of a very strange dream, if I may call it--a
hallucination."
"You may, madam," said the doctor, for the young man sat down in
silence.
"Which has, I fear, given your mother a great deal of annoyance. I am,
unfortunately, too weak at present to call upon her, or to explain to
her. Therefore I have ventured to ask you to be so very kind as to
come here, so that I may send a message to Lady Woodroffe."
"I am here," said Sir Humphrey, ungraciously.
"I will not take up much of your time. I had an illness in America
which touched my brain, I believe. I imagined that a child which I
lost twenty-four years ago was still living. He was the son of my
first husband, whose name was Woodroffe. He was also the father of
Richard Woodroffe here. More than that, I fancied that one person
was that child. That person was yourself. I fancied that you were
the child. I had not lost it by death. I surrendered it to a lady by
adoption."
Humphrey started. He changed colour. He sat up in his chair. He
listened eagerly. His lip trembled.
"He understands," Molly whispered.
"No; he begins to understand what was meant," Dick returned. "He
cannot guess the whole."
Yes; he understood now that he was face to face with a great danger.
Many things became plain to him--Molly's words, John Haveril's words,
Sir Robert's words.
He understood the nature of the danger. He listened, while a horrible
terror seized him at the mere prospect of that danger. He heard the
rest with a sense of relief, equalled only by his sense of the danger.
Alice went on. "I first saw you at the theatre one night. You were so
much like my husband that I concluded that you must be my son. I met
you at Sir Robert's. I became certain that you were my son. We made
inquiries. Please tell him, Sir Robert."
"These inquiries," said the doctor, "proved certain things which were
curious and interesting. I may confess that they seemed to point in
your direction. This lady became too hastily convinced that they did
so. She is now as firmly convinced that they did not."
Humphrey sighed deeply.
"It was an awkward case," Sir Robert went on--"one that required tact."
"I gave a great deal of trouble"--Alice took up the wondrous tale
again.
"But it is all over now," the doctor added. "Do not talk too much."
"Yes, all over. My bodily frame is weak, but my mind is clear again.
Now, Sir Humphrey, I wish you, if you will be so kind, to go to Lady
Woodroffe, and tell her from me that the hallucination has passed
away, and give her my regrets that I disturbed her. Sir Robert will
perhaps go with you, to make the explanation clearer, because he knows
all the details."
"I will certainly call upon Lady Woodroffe this evening," said the
doctor. "Indeed, Sir Humphrey is ignorant of certain facts connected
with the case which will probably incline Lady Woodroffe to forgive
and excuse the more readily."
"Will you do this, Sir Humphrey?" asked Mrs. Haveril.
"Yes, if that's all," he replied hoarsely. "Is that all? Was it, as
you say, hallucination? Are you quite certain?"
The doctor felt his patient's pulse. "All hallucination," he replied.
"Now, please finish this interview as soon as you can."
"I want Sir Humphrey to give me his own forgiveness."
"If there were anything to forgive."
"Since there is nothing," said the doctor, sternly, "you can even more
readily go through the form."
"Well, if you wish it."
Humphrey held out his hand.
"Tell her, man," said the doctor, impatiently--"tell her what she
wants."
"Since you desire it"--Humphrey obeyed, coldly and reluctantly--"I
forgive you. Will that do?"
Alice raised her head; she pushed back her hair with her left hand.
Molly held her up. She gazed upon her son's face; it was cold and hard
and pitiless. She stooped over her son's hand; it was cold and hard,
and seemed as pitiless as his face--there was no warmth nor impression
in the hand. She bent her head and kissed it. Her tears fell upon
it--her silent tears. Humphrey withdrew his hand. He looked round, as
if asking what next.
Dick went to the door, and pointed to the stairs, holding the door
open.
Alice lay back on the pillow. The doctor took her wrist again.
"Doctor," she whispered, "I have never wholly lost my boy till now."
Her eyes closed. Her cheek grew white.
The doctor laid down her hand. "Never," he said, "till now."
THE END.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.