are thinking me a hard man? Yes, I have grown hard. I was
soft enough once. But if I forgave any sinner now I should do my boy,
who is dead, an awful injustice. I would not pass over his sin, and I
dare not pass over any other. I know I shall pursue Roland until his
death or mine; my son's fate cries out for it. But I'm not a hard man
toward innocent sufferers, like you and his poor mother. Try to think of
me as your friend; nay, even Roland's friend, for what would a few
years' penal servitude be compared with my boy's death? Shake hands
with me before I go."

The small, delicate hand she offered him was icy cold, though her face
was still calm and her eyes clear and dry. He was himself more moved and
agitated than she appeared to be. The mention of his son always shook
him to the very centre of his soul; yet he had not been able to resist
uttering the words that had passed his lips during this painful
interview with Roland's young wife. Unshed tears were burning under his
eyelids. But if it had not been for that death-like hand he might have
imagined her almost unmoved.

Felicita was down-stairs before Madame the next morning, and had ordered
the carriage to be ready to take her and the children to Upfold Farm
directly after breakfast. It was so rare an incident for their mother to
be present at the breakfast-table that Felix and Hilda felt as if it
were a holiday. Madame was pale and sad, and for the first time Felicita
thought of her as being a sufferer by Roland's crime. Her husband's
mother had been little more to her than a superior housekeeper, who had
been faithfully attached to her and her children. The homely, gentle,
domestic foreigner, from a humble Swiss home, had looked up to her young
aristocratic daughter-in-law as a being from a higher sphere. But now
the downcast, sorrowful face of the elder woman touched Felicita's
sympathy.

"Mother!" she said, as soon as the children had run away to get ready
for their drive. She had never before called Madame "mother," and a
startled look, almost of delight, crossed Madame's sad face.

"My daughter!" she cried, running to Felicita's side, and throwing her
arms timidly about her, "he is sure to come back soon--to-day, I think.
Oh, yes, he will be here when we return! You do well to stay to meet
him; and I should be glad to be here, but for the children. Yes, the
little ones must be out of the way. They must not see their father's
house searched; they must neve