Doubtless had he been as in former days, he would have turned from such over flow of love as womanish gush. But disgraced, worn out, and even to his own eyes an unpleasant object, he was not so much inclined to repel the love of the only one knowing his story who did not feel for him more or less contempt. Sometimes in those terrible half-dreams in the dark of early morning when suddenly waked by conscience to hold a tete-a-tete with her, he would imagine himself walking into the bank, and encountering the eyes of all the men on his way to his uncle, whom next to his father he feared—then find himself running for refuge to the bosom of his mother. She was true to him yet!

Slowly, slowly, something was working on him—now in the imagined judgment of others, now in the thought of his wife, now in the devotion of his mother. Little result was there for earthly eye, but the mother’s perceived or imagined a difference in him. If only she could perceive something plain to tell her husband! If the ice that froze up the spring of his love would but begin to melt!

For to whom are we to go for refuge from ourselves if not to those through whom we were born into the world, and who are to blame for more or less of our unfitness for a true life?—“His father must forgive him!” she said to herself. She would go down on her knees to him. Their boy should not be left out in the cold! If he had been guilty, what was that to the cruel world so ready to punish, so ready to do worse! The mother still carried in her soul the child born of her body, preparing for him the new and better, the all-lovely birth of repentance unto life.

Hester had not yet said a word about her own affairs. No one but the major knew that the engagement to lord Gartley was broken. She did not want to add still another element of perturbance to the overcharged atmosphere. She would not add disappointment to grief.

In the afternoon the major, who was staying in the village two miles off, made his appearance. No sooner did he learn of Mark’s condition than he insisted on taking charge of him. Hester could not but be pleased with the proposal, for she had so much else to see to. So the major took the position of head nurse, with Saffy for his aide and one of the servants for an orderly.

Hester’s mind was almost constantly occupied with wondering how to let her father and mother know what they must know soon, and ought to know as soon as possible. She would tell her father first. Her mother should not know till he did. But she could not see how to begin. Everything seemed at a standstill.