re pathetic tone, resumed: "Not that
I want for anything; I receive a very handsome allowance. But when my
relatives have given me the wherewithal to keep me from starving, they
imagine their duty is fulfilled. I think this very hard. I didn't come
into the world at my own request, did I? I didn't ask to be born. If
I was such an annoyance to them when I came into existence, why didn't
they throw me into the river? Then they would have been well rid of me,
and I should be out of my misery!"

He stopped short, struck dumb with amazement, for Madame d'Argeles had
thrown herself on her knees at his feet. "Have mercy!" she faltered;
"Wilkie; my son, forgive me!" Alas! the unfortunate woman had failed in
playing a part which was too difficult for a mother's heart. "You have
suffered cruelly, my son," she continued; "but I--I--Ah! you can't
conceive the frightful agony it costs a mother to separate from her
child! But you were not deserted, Wilkie; don't say that. Have you not
felt my love in the air around you? YOU forgotten? Know, then, that for
years and years I have seen you every day, and that all my thoughts and
all my hopes are centered in you alone! Wilkie!"

She dragged herself toward him with her hands clasped in an agony of
supplication, while he recoiled, frightened by this outburst of
passion, and utterly amazed by his easily won victory. The poor woman
misunderstood this movement. "Great God!" she exclaimed, "he spurns me;
he loathes me. Ah! I knew it would be so. Oh! why did you come? What
infamous wretch sent you here? Name him, Wilkie! Do you understand, now,
why I concealed myself from you? I dreaded the day when I should blush
before you, before my own son. And yet it was for your sake. Death would
have been a rest, a welcome release for me. But your breath was ebbing
away, your poor little arms no longer had strength to clasp me round the
neck. And then I cried: 'Perish my soul and body, if only my child can
be saved!' I believed such a sacrifice permissible in a mother. I am
punished for it as if it were a crime. I thought you would be happy, my
Wilkie. I said to myself that you, my pride and joy, would move freely
and proudly far above me and my shame. I accepted ignominy, so that your
honor might be preserved intact. I knew the horrors of abject poverty,
and I wished to save my son from it. I would have licked up the very
mire in your pathway to save you from a stain. I renounced all hope for
myself, a