espair."

The Rector ceased to speak. Bertram began to pace the floor.

"I can't forgive my mother," he said, at last. "I shall marry Josephine
to-morrow morning and take her away, but I never want to see my mother
again."

"Then she will die. She is weak now, weak and crushed. If you refuse
your forgiveness you will have her death to answer for. I don't
exonerate your mother's sin, but I do plead for your mercy. She sinned
to shield and save you. You must not turn from her. Are you immaculate
yourself?"

"I am not, Mr. Ingram. I am in no sense of the word good. I have been
extravagant, reckless, I have been untruthful. I have caused my mother
many a pang, and she has invariably been an angel of goodness and
kindness to me. But her cruelty to Nina cuts me like a sword, and I
cannot forgive her."

The Rector went over to the window, drew up the blinds, and looked out.

"Come here," he said to the young man. "Do you see that faint light in
the east?"

"Yes, sir, the day is breaking."

"The day of your wedding, and of your new life. To-day you realize what
true love means. You take the hand of the girl who is all the world to
you, and you promise to love and reverence and defend her. To-day you
put away the past life. You rise out of the ashes of the past, and put
on manliness, and honor, and those virtues which good men prize, like an
armor, Beatrice tells me you have promised her all this."

"Beatrice--God bless Beatrice:" Bertram's eyes were misty. "I will be a
good husband, and a true man," he said with fervor. "I have been a
wretch in the past, and with God's help I'll show Nina, and Beatrice
too, what stuff they have made of me. I'll be a true man for their
sakes. But my mother--Mr. Ingram, you have given me a cruel shock on my
wedding morning."

"Bertram, all that you have said to me now will end in failure, will
wither up like the early dew if you cherish hard feelings towards your
mother. Did she ever cherish them to you? What about that bill she had
to meet? That bill would have ruined her."

"Beatrice met the bill."

"Had there been no Beatrice?"

Bertram turned his head away.

"I have been a scoundrel," he said at last.

The Rector laid his hand on his arm.

"You have been something uncommonly like it, my dear fellow. And the
spirit of revenge does not sit well on you. Come, your mother is
waiting. Change her despair to peace. Say some of the good things you
have said to me to her, and the