in's
superb canvas.

But in place of Winifred the profile of my mother's face, cold,
proud, and white, met my gaze. Again did the stress of overmastering
emotion make of me a child, as it had done on the night of the
landslip. 'Mother!' I said, 'you see who it is?'

She made no answer: she stood looking steadfastly at the picture; but
the tremor of the nostrils, the long deep breaths she drew, told me
of the fierce struggle waging within her breast between conscience
and pity, with rage and cruel pride. My old awe of her returned. I
was a little boy again, trembling for Winnie. In some unaccountable
and, I believe, unprecedented way I had always felt that she, my own
mother, belonged to some haughty race superior to mine and Winnie's;
and nothing but the intensity of my love for Winnie could ever have
caused me to rebel against my mother.

'Dear mother,' I murmured, 'all the mischief and sorrow and pain are
ended now; and we shall all be happy; for you have a kind heart,
dear, and cannot help loving poor Winnie, when you come to know her.'

She made no answer save that her lips slowly reddened again after the
pallor; then came a quiver in them, as though pity were conquering
pride within her breast, and then that contemptuous curl that had
often in the past cowed the heart of the fearless and pugnacious boy
whom no peril of sea or land could appal.

'She is found,' I said. 'And, mother, there is no longer an
estrangement between you and me. I forgive you everything now.'

I leapt from her as though I had been stung, so sudden and unexpected
was the look of scorn that came over her face as she said, 'You
forgive me!' It recalled my struggle with her on that dreadful
night: and in a moment I became myself again. The pleading boy
became, at a flash, the stern and angry man that misery had made him.
With my heart hedged once more with points of steel to all the world
but Winnie, I turned away. I did not know then that her attitude
towards me at this moment came from the final struggle in her breast
between her pride and that remorse which afterwards took possession
of her and seemed as though it would make the remainder of her life a
tragedy without a smile in it. At that moment Wilderspin and Sleaford
came in from the smaller studio. 'Where is she?' I said to
Wilderspin. 'Take me to her at once--take me to her who sat for this
picture. It is she whom I and Sinfi Lovell were seeking in Wales.'

A look of utter ast