'And you pick out one who can love like a man, who fires at a word or a look, and him you delight to stab and torment with your cruel tongue, while you use him for your ends. Shameless! You have dropped yourself into his arms even, so to heat the Alien from his fishes' blood. May I live to see you put to shame of some man!'

'He said--oh, vile--of me! Cur, cur!'

''Tis I that can read between the lines, not he, poor blind fool! Miscall him! ay, you have got the trick. You may bring up faults against him--some do; but I tell you no man will do greatly amiss who still goes to his old mother and opens his heart to her.'

Rhoda's breath caught like a sob at that, for there unknowingly went a stroke at Christian. She gathered herself together for bitter onslaught, for outraged pride and indignation drove out compunction, drove out any mercy. Out it all shrivelled at a blasting thought that stopped her very heart. Mute she stood, white, shuddering, staring. Then she got out a whisper.

'When did he go--tell me? Since--my uncle died--or--before?'

'Well enough you know 'twas before----'

Rhoda turned and fled homeward, fleet as terror, though her knees went slack and her brain reeled. She drew bolts before her dreadful incoherent whispers welled out to Lois.

'Where he went she did not know, did not guess, never thought it was on a planned venture. None would think of that, or think that two alone would suffice, or dream of Christian--I had thought that strange--you too. And we know Christian went on a venture, by the three gold pieces we know: and that could not have been alone, and he is not of the League. And I thought it had been with Philip; and I thought Philip meant kindness--perhaps for my sake, which vexed me. Oh, perhaps it was for my sake, and I was vexed! Yet see, none others guess it nor do conceive that any, in any cause, would go hand in hand with our Christian. And none would greatly mark his goings and comings--Christian's--for unreason has so chartered his ways. Then, though both were away that same day, not even his mother had noted it. And oh! think of Christian in these days!

Has sorrow only been heavy at his heart? And a hurt on his throat he would not show. And oh!' she said, 'and oh!' she said, and failed and tried again, 'oh! his knife--_he has not his knife_.'

The love and faith of Lois sprang up against belief.

'Child, child! what do you dare to say--to think? Would you hint that Christian--my boy Christian--has done murder?

'No, no, never! No, never, never! I would stake my life--my soul--that it was fair fight!'

Lois looked at her and said a cruel thing: 'You are no helpmeet for him.

Thank G.o.d! you are not his wife!'

Rhoda quivered at that, and found it a saying hard to forgive. Her heart swelled to refute it, and might not for maidenhood. Long ago she would have had Christian rise up to avenge himself terribly; her pride had suffered from the poor temper she saw in his. Now, though he had exceeded the measure of her vague desire, he stood fair and high in her estimation, illuminated, not blackened by the crime she imputed. Against all the world, against his mother, she was at one with him. Was there any other who desired and deserved the nearest and dearest claim, that she had renounced.

A wedge of silence drove between them. The character of the mother's stern virtue dawned upon Rhoda, appalling her: for the salvation of her son's soul she might bid him accept the full penalty of his crime--even that. A horror of such monstrous righteousness took the girl. She stole to unbolt the door and away to warn Christian, when a whisper stayed her.

'I failed him. I thought then only of my man, and I had no prayers for my boy. Ah, Christian, Christian!'

Doubt had entered. Lois knelt and prayed.

Rhoda wavered. Her estimate or the world's, the partial or the vindictive, shrank to their due proportions, as Lois thus set Christian's crime before the eye of Heaven. She wavered, turned, and fell kneeling, clinging and weeping, convicted of the vain presumption that would keep Christian from the hands of his G.o.d.

She was bidden away when Lois caught a sound of Christian.

His mother held him by the window for the first word.

'Christian, where is Philip?'

His startled eyes were a stab to her soul; the tide that crimsoned his very brow checked hers at her heart. He failed of answering, and guilt weighed down his head. She rallied on an inspiration that greatest crimes blanch, never redden, and 'You have not killed him?' was a question of little doubt.

'No, thank G.o.d! no!' he said, and she saw that he shook.

Then he tried to out with the whole worst truth, but he needed to labour for breath before he could say with a catch: 'I meant to--for one moment.'

To see a dear face stricken so! Do the d.a.m.ned fare worse? More dreadful than any reproach was her turning away with wrung hands. She returned to question.

'Then where is he?'

'I cannot tell. He left me. He would not--he was afraid.'

'What had you done? You had harmed him?'

'Yes,' he said, and told how.

'What had he done to anger you? Had he struck first?'

'No.'

'You had quarrelled?'

'No.'

'Had you no excuse?' she said.

He hesitated. Could she know and understand all, there might be some pity with her condemnation, there would be some tempering of her distress.

'I can make none,' he had to answer.

When next she spoke: 'Then it was old hate,' she said, and after a minute he answered 'Yes' to that.

So she had to realise that for months, according to her gospel, he had been a murderer at heart; and her a.s.surance of a merciful blank of mind and memory tottered, threatening a downfall that would prove the dear son of her hope of a rotten build. She tested his memory.

'I asked a promise of you once, and you gave it.'

'Yes,' he said, and, do what he would, 'I have broken it' got mangled wretchedly in his throat.

'Your promise! Is it believable? You could--you!'

'O mother! If G.o.d forgot me!'

Her heart smote her because her prayers had deserted him then.

'Oh, peace!' she said, 'and do not add blasphemy, nor seek to juggle with G.o.d.'

She did not spare him, and deeply she searched his conscience.

Self-convicted already he was, yet his guilt looked freshly hideous worded by her, as look wounds, known to the senses of night, discovered by the eye of day.

For a whole dreadful hour Rhoda listened to the murmur of voices. Then they ceased, and Lois came. 'Thank G.o.d, child!' was all she needed to say.

'Heaven forgive me! Can you? can he? Let me go to him--I must. Ah me!--can he forgive me?'

Lois held the door and turned her. 'He has nothing to forgive,' she said, and her face frightened questions.

From among some poor h.o.a.rds Lois drew out a tiny cross of gold. It was Christian's, sole relic left of his young unknown life. As a little lad he had played with it and lost it, and Lois finding it had taken it into keeping. Now she took it to him.

'I will ask no renewal of a broken promise--no. I want no hard thing of you, only this: when temptation to deadly sin is overbearing, before you yield, unfasten this and fling it from you into the sea. You will?