or of vice, I cannot forget. Emilia, then still half
child and only half woman, was made flexible in time. But that my mother
did not do everything in her power to prevent this gruesome deed, and
that it caused her to sink deeper and deeper into the coils of domestic
anguish by reason of her innate and gnawing weakness--that was the
bitterest experience of my entire life."

"But she is your mother, Eberhard. Never in the history of the human
family has a son had the right to condemn his mother."

"That is news to me," replied Eberhard coldly. "Mothers are human beings
like any one else. Even mothers can commit a sin by filling their
children with the poison of distrust and disgust with life. Father and
mother, parents: they are a symbol, a glorious one when they hover above
us and around us, worthy of respect and calling for filial veneration.
But if I am bound to them only by the ties of duty, they are not
symbols; they are mere phantoms, conceptions of human speech. There is
no duty but the duty of love."

Sylvia had sat in perfect silence. Unconsciously she had followed the
most beautiful law of harmonious souls: to wield an influence, to have
power, not through the use of words and the elaboration of reasons, but
by a pure life, an unquestioned existence. Agreement and disagreement
lay like a play of light and shadow on her brow.

In this way she reminded Eberhard more and more of Eleanore.

Perhaps it was the power of this memory that moved him to promise that
he would go with Agatha on the following day to his mother. The sole
condition he imposed was that he be assured that he would not meet his
father.

Seeing that he was relentless in this request, Frau von Erfft conceded
it, though she had a reassuring premonition that the events and the hour
would be stronger than will and purpose.

V

On entering his mother's boudoir, Eberhard's eyes fell at once on the
alabaster clock, the face of which was supported by three figures
representing the daughters of time. In his childhood days the clock had
always had a highly poetic meaning to him: it seemed to symbolise the
fulfilment of his most ardent wishes.

The Baroness had been prepared for his coming by her sister. While
Eberhard and Sylvia had been standing in the corner room waiting, a few
of the servants had gathered at the door, where they whispered to each
other timidly.

Eberhard went up to his mother and kissed