mother, was what
I meant to do. But I am too ill to move; I feel that in an hour or
so, or in a few minutes, I shall be delirious. And then, mother! Oh,
_then_!--'My mother looked astonished at my vehemence upon the
subject.

'Henry,' she said, 'I had no idea that you felt such an interest in
the matter; I have certainly misjudged your character entirely. And
now, what do you want me to do?'

'Nobody,' I said, 'must know of the cross but ourselves. I want you,
mother, to do what I cannot do: I want you to go on the sands and
wait for the turn of the tide; I want you to take the cross from
Wynne's breast, if the body should be exposed, and secure it in
secret till it can be replaced in the coffin.'

'_I_ do this, Henry?' said my mother, with a look of bewilderment at
my earnestness. 'Yet there is reason in what you say, and grievous as
the task would be for me, I must consider it.'

'But will you engage to do it, mother?'

'Really, Henry, you forget yourself,--you forget your mother too. For
me to go down to the sands and watch the ebbing of the tide, and then
defile myself by touching the body of this wretch, is a task I
naturally shrink from. Still if, on thinking it over, I find it my
duty to do it, it will not be needful for me to enter into a compact
with my son that my duty to my dead husband shall be performed.
Good-night. I quite think you will be better in the morning. I see no
signs myself of the fever you seem to dread, and, alas! I am not, as
you know, ignorant of the way in which a fever begins.'

She was going out of the room when I exclaimed, in sheer desperation,
'Mother, I have something else to say to you. You remember the little
girl, the little blue-eyed girl, Wynne's daughter, who came here
once, and you were so kind to her, so gracious and so kind'; and I
seized her hand and covered it with kisses, for I was beside myself
with alarm lest my one hope should go.'

The sudden little laugh of bitter scorn that came from my mother's
lips, the sudden spasm that shook her frame, the sudden shadow as of
night that swept across her features, should at once have hushed my
confession. But I went on: my tongue would not stop now: I felt that
my eloquence, the eloquence of Winifred's danger, must conquer, must
soften even the hard pride of her race.

'And she has never forgotten your graciousness to her, mother.'

'Well?' said my mother, in a tone whose velvet softness withered me.

'Well, mother, s