ife; he was brutal,
insincere; he had lied to her; he was living on the fruits of sacrilege;
he had outraged every human tie he possessed; and yet she loved every
hair of his dark head, every movement of his strong hands. It was that
that had broken down the mother's reserve; she had been beaten by the
girl's insolence, as a dog is beaten into respect; she had only one
thing that she had not been able to forgive, and that was that this
girl had tossed aside her son's love; then the question had been asked
and answered; and the work had been done. The dying woman had
surrendered wholly to the superior personality; and had obeyed like a
child.

* * * * *

She had a sense of terrible guilt as she went downstairs into the
passage that opened on the court; the fact that she had put into words
what had lain in her heart, made her fancy that the secret was written
on her face. Then again she drove the imagination down by sheer will;
she knew that she had won back her self-control, and could trust her own
discretion.

Their greeting was that of two acquaintances. There was not the tremor
of an eyelid of either, or a note in either voice, that betrayed that
their relations had once been different. Ralph thanked her courteously
for her attention to his mother; and she made a proper reply. Then they
all sat down to breakfast.

Then Margaret had to be attended to, for she was half-wild with remorse;
she declared to Beatrice when they went upstairs together that she had
been a wicked daughter, that she had resented her mother's words again
and again, had behaved insolently, and so forth. Beatrice took her in
her arms.

"My dear," she said, "indeed you must leave all that now. Come and see
her; she is at peace, and you must be."

The bedroom where Lady Torridon had died was arranged as a _chapelle
ardente;_ the great bed had been moved out into the centre of the room.
Six tall candlesticks with escutcheons and yellow tapers formed a
slender mystical wall of fire and light about it; the windows were
draped a couple of kneeling desks were set at the foot of the bed.
Chris was kneeling at one beside his father as they went in, and Mary
Maxwell, who had arrived a few hours before death had taken place, was
by herself in a corner.

Beatrice drew Margaret to the second desk, pushed the book to her, and
knelt by her. There lay the body of the strange, fierce, lonely woman,
with her beautiful hands cr