l that you
should lie there. Mother, let me lift you." But she still clung to
his knees, grovelling on the ground before him. "Lucius, Lucius," she
said, and she then sank away from him as though the strength of her
muscles would no longer allow her to cling to him. She sank away from
him and lay along the ground hiding her face upon the floor.

"Mother," he said, taking her gently by the arm as he knelt at her
side, "if you will rise I will speak to you."

"Your words will kill me," she said. "I do not dare to look at you.
Oh! Lucius, will you ever forgive me?"

And yet she had done it all for him. She had done a rascally deed,
an hideous cut-throat deed, but it had been done altogether for him.
No thought of her own aggrandisement had touched her mind when she
resolved upon that forgery. As Rebekah had deceived her lord and
robbed Esau, the first-born, of his birthright, so had she robbed him
who was as Esau to her. How often had she thought of that, while her
conscience was pleading hard against her! Had it been imputed as a
crime to Rebekah that she had loved her own son well, and loving him
had put a crown upon his head by means of her matchless guile? Did
she love Lucius, her babe, less than Rebekah had loved Jacob? And had
she not striven with the old man, struggling that she might do this
just thing without injustice, till in his anger he had thrust her
from him. "I will not break my promise for the brat," the old man had
said;--and then she did the deed. But all that was as nothing now.
She felt no comfort now from that Bible story which had given her
such encouragement before the thing was finished. Now the result of
evil-doing had come full home to her, and she was seeking pardon with
a broken heart, while burning tears furrowed her cheeks,--not from
him whom she had thought to injure, but from the child of her own
bosom, for whose prosperity she had been so anxious.

Then she slowly arose and allowed him to place her upon the sofa.
"Mother," he said, "it is all over here."

"Ah! yes."

"Whither we had better go, I cannot yet say,--or when. We must wait
till this day is ended."

"Lucius, I care nothing for myself,--nothing. It is nothing to me
whether or no they say that I am guilty. It is of you only that I am
thinking."

"Our lot, mother, must still be together. If they find you guilty
you will be imprisoned, and then I will go, and come back when they
release you. For you and me the future world