ys do my duty by you;
but, mother, you must be patient and give me time. Do you not see,' and
here his voice became more agitated, 'that you have yourself destroyed
my faith in my mother: the mother in whom I believed, who was truth
itself to me, is only my own illusion. I know now that she never
existed; that is why I say that you must give me time, that I may become
used to my new mother.'

He spoke with the utmost gentleness; but his words were dreadful to her.
And yet she hardly understood them. How could the pure rectitude, the
scrupulous honour, of such a nature be comprehended by a woman like
Olive O'Brien, a creature of wild impulses, whose notions of morality
were as shifty as the quicksands, whose sense of right and wrong was so
strangely warped? For the first time in her life the strong accusing
light of conscience seemed to penetrate the murky recesses of her nature
with an unearthly radiance that seemed to scorch her into nothingness.
Her son had become her judge, and the penalty he imposed was worse than
death to her. Of what use would her life be to her if the idol of her
heart had turned against her? And yet, with all her remorse and misery,
there was no repentance: if the time had come over again, she would
still have freed herself from the husband she loathed, she would still
have dressed herself in her widows' weeds, and carried out her life's
deception.

Cyril was perfectly aware of this; he knew all her anguish was caused by
his displeasure, and by the bitter consequences that he was reaping. Her
plot had failed; it had only brought disaster on him and his. If he
could have seen one spark of real repentance--if she had owned to him
with tears that her sorrow was for her sin, and that she would fain undo
it--his heart would have been softer to her as she sat and wept before
him.

'I never thought you could have been so hard to me!' she sobbed.

'I do not mean to be hard,' was his answer; 'that is why I said there
should be peace between us, and because I am going away.'

'You are going!--where?'

And then he told her briefly that Captain Burnett had offered him a
temporary home.

'It is better for me to be alone a little,' he went on. 'When I have
settled work, and you can get rid of the house, I will ask you to join
me; but that will not be for some time.'

'And I must stop on here alone? Oh, Cyril, my own boy, let me come with
you! I will slave, I will be content with a crust, if you will