arily gripped them very tight, as though she
were thinking: "I cannot give him up; I cannot let him go."

I smiled down at her, and, as I saw the moisture veil her eyes, I
felt that I, too, would like to cry. At last she said:

"If I'm never to see you again, Rupert, I shall yet always be
thankful for the nineteen years' happiness you've given me."

"Oh, mother," I said. No more words could I utter, for my eyes were
smarting worse than ever. I felt about eight years old.

"If all the rest of my life had to be sorrow," she whispered, no
longer concealing the fact that she was breaking down, "the last
nineteen years of you, Rupert, have made it all so well worth
living. I shall have had more happiness out of it than sorrow. Thank
you--for all you've given me."

She let go of my left hand, so as to free her own, with which she
might wipe her overflowing eyes. Then she dropped the cambric
handkerchief into her lap, and grasped my hand again. As for me, I
kept silence, for my mother's thanks were making my breath come in
those short, quick gasps, which a man must control if he would
prevent them breaking into sobs.

"You see," she explained, "you had _his_ eyes. Your grandfather used
to say of you, 'he has that Rupert's eyes.'"

"Mother!" I ejaculated. Only in that last moment did I, thoughtless
boy that I was, enter into an understanding of my mother's love for
the father I had never seen. In the last evening of nineteen years
there was revealed to me all that my mother's young widowhood had
meant to her.

"I didn't want to break down," she apologised, drawing me even
closer to her, as though appealing for my forgiveness, "but, oh! I
couldn't help it. I've never loved you so desperately as I do at
this moment."

"Mother," I stuttered, "I've been rotten--more rotten than you
know."

"No, my big boy, you've been perfect. I wouldn't have had you
different in any way. Everything about you pleased me. And how--how
can I give you up?"

"I'll come back to you, mother. I swear I will."

"Oh, but you mustn't allow any thought of me to unnerve you out
there, Rupert," she said, quickly releasing my hands, lest it were
traitorous to hold me back. "Do everything you are called to
do--however dangerous--" The word caused her to sob. "Don't think of
me when you've got to fight. No, I don't mean that--" Mother
was torn between her emotions. "Rather think of me, and do
the--dangerous thing--if it's right--yes, do it--becaus