lifted head and kindling eye, he looked, in this hour of triumph
over himself, as if no temptation had ever assailed, or ever could
assail, him. But then his glance fell upon Mrs. Luttrell, whose hands
fiercely clutched the arms of her chair, whose features worked with
uncontrollable agitation. He fell on his knees before her.

"Mother!" he cried. "Forgive me. Perhaps I was wrong. I will--I will ...
I will pray for you."

The last few words were spoken after a long pause, with a fall in his
voice, which showed that they were not those which he had intended to
say when he began the sentence. There was something solemn and pathetic
in the sound. But Mrs. Luttrell would not hear.

"Go!" she said, hoarsely. "Go. You are no son of mine. Sooner Brian--or
Hugo--than you. Go back to your monastery."

She thrust him away from her with her hands when he tried to plead. And
at last he saw that there was no use in arguing, for she pulled a bell
which hung within her reach, and, when the servant appeared, she placed
the matter beyond dispute by saying sharply:--

"Show this gentleman out."

Dino looked at her face, clasped his hands in one last silent entreaty,
and--went. There was no use in staying longer. The door closed behind
him, and the woman who had thrust away from her the love that might have
been hers, but for her selfishness and hardness of heart, was left
alone.

A whirl of raging, angry thoughts made her brain throb and reel. She had
put away from her what might have been the great joy of her life; her
will, which had never been controlled by another, had been simply set
aside and disregarded. What was there left for her to do? All the
repentance in the world would not give her back the precious papers that
her son had burnt before her eyes. And where had he gone? Back to his
monastery? Should she never, never see him again? Was he tramping the
long and weary way to the Dunmuir station, where the railway engine
would presently come shrieking and sweeping out of the darkness, and,
like a fabled monster in some old fairy tale, gather him into its
embrace, and bear him away to a place whence he would never more return?

So grotesque this fancy appeared to her that her anger failed her, and
she laughed a little to herself--laughed with bloodless lips that made
no sound. A kind of numbness of thought came over her: she sat for a
little time in blank unconsciousness of her sorrow, and yet she did not
sleep. And then