Then, if you did, I do not wonder you should be
glad to see my son fighting me. It would seem the horrible revenge
Destiny should take." He took a step nearer to her. His face flamed,
his arms stretched out. "I have held you in these arms. I come with
repentance in my heart, with--"

Her face now was flushed. She interrupted him.

"I don't believe in you, Barode Barouche. At least my husband did not
go from his hearthstone looking for what belonged to others. No--No--no;
however much I suffered, I understood that what he did not feel for me
at least he felt for no one else. To him, life was his business, and to
the long end business mastered his emotions. I have no faith in you! In
the depth of my soul something cries out: 'He is not true. His life is
false.' To leave me that was right, but, monsieur, not as you left me.
You pick the fruit and eat it and spit upon the ground the fibre and the
skin. I am no longer the slave of your false eloquence. It has nothing
in it for me now, nothing at all--nothing."

"Yet your son--has he naught of me? If your son has genius, I have the
right to say a part of it came from me. Why should you say that all
that's good in the boy is yours--that the boy, in all he does and
says, is yours! No--no. Your long years of suffering have hardened into
injustice and wrong."

Suddenly he touched her arm. "There are women as young as you were when
I wronged you, who would be my wife now--young, beautiful, buoyant;
but I come to you because I feel we might still have some years of
happiness. Together, where our boy's fate mattered, we two could help
him on his way. That is what I feel, my dear."

When he touched her arm she did not move, yet there was in his fingers
something which stirred ulcers long since healed and scarred. She
stepped back from him.

"Do not touch me. The past is buried for ever. There can be no
resurrection. I know what I should do, and I will do it. For the rest
of my life, I shall live for my son. I hope he will defeat you. I don't
lift a hand to help him except to give him money, not John Grier's
money but my own, always that. You are fighting what is stronger than
yourself. One thing is sure, he is nearer to the spirit of your race
than you. He will win--but yes, he will win!"

Her face suffused with warmth, became alive with a wonderful fire, her
whole being had a simple tragedy. Once again, and perhaps for the last
time, she had renewed the splendour of her you