sion with equanimity. But Janetta still hung over
the pillow, caressing the dying woman, and looking tenderly into her
face.

"Yes, you thought so then--I understand," she said. "But that was
because of your illness. You do not think so now."

"Yes," said Mrs. Brand, in the same loud, hoarse whisper. "I think so
now."

Then Janetta was silent for a minute or two. The black, ghastly look in
Mrs. Brand's wide-open eyes disconcerted her. She scarcely knew what to
say.

"I have always hated her. I hate her now," said Wyvis' mother. "She has
done me no harm; no. But she has injured my boy; she made his life
miserable, and I cannot forgive her for that."

"If Wyvis forgives her," said Janetta gently, "can you not forgive her
too?"

"Wyvis does not forgive her for making him unhappy," said Mrs. Brand.

"Wyvis,"--Janetta looked round at him. She could not see his face. He
was standing with his face to the window and his back to the bed.
"Wyvis, you have come back to your wife: does not that show that you are
willing to forget the past and to make a fresh beginning. Tell your
mother so, Cousin Wyvis."

He turned round slowly, and looked at her, not at his mother, as he
replied:

"Yes, I am willing to begin again," he said. "I never wished her any
harm."

"Then, you will forgive her--for Wyvis' sake? For Julian's sake?" said
Janetta.

A strange contraction of the features altered Mrs. Brand's face for a
moment: her breath came with difficulty and her lips turned white.

"I forgive," she said at last, in broken tones. "I cannot quite forget.
But I do not want--now--to harm her. It was but for a time--when my head
was bad."

"We know, we know," said Janetta eagerly. "We understand. Wyvis, tell
her that _you_ understand too."

She looked at him insistently, and he returned the look. Their eyes said
a good deal to each other in a second's space of time. In hers there was
tenderness, expostulation, entreaty; in his some shade of mingled horror
and regret. But he yielded his will to hers, thinking it nobler than his
own; and, turning to his mother, he stooped and kissed her on the
forehead.

"I understand, mother. Janetta has made me understand."

"Janetta--it is always Janetta we have to thank," his mother murmured
feebly. "It was for Janetta as well as for you that I did it. Wyvis--but
it is no use now. And, God forgive me, I did not know what I did."

She sank into silence and spoke no more for the next few h