Oh, those days and nights of sorrow and suspense! The tortured parents would never forget them.

The memory of their harshness was a lash to conscience that never ceased to sting.

In the weary nightly vigils, when they hung over the sufferer’s bedside, the mother prayed, unceasingly:

“Oh, God, give me back my boy, that I may atone!”

All her pride was brought low. If she could have known where to find the mysterious girl her son loved, she would have dragged her by force, if necessary, to her son’s bedside, hoping that the sight of her beauty would lure him back to life.

Oh, the strength of a mother’s love! What will it not endure and yield and suffer for the sake of the beloved one!

The proud woman learned, in that fiery trial, all the strength of her love for her son—knew that it was stronger than pride or ambition, mightier than death.

“Give him back that I may atone!” was her continual prayer, until it seemed as if God must have heard and pitied at last.

The day came when he opened his heavy eyes and knew his mother.

They lightened with a faint gleam of pleasure, and from that moment he began to convalesce.

Memory lay dormant in his mind for days; but it wakened at last, as she knew by the sudden change on his face.

It was twilight, and the windows were open, that warm summer evening, to admit the pleasant air. The western sky was still faintly roseate with hues of the fading sunset, and the sounds of the London streets were softening with the close of the weary day of toil.

Mr. Beresford had gone out for a walk, and the mother and son were alone.

She sat at the head of his low couch, softly stroking back the dark hair from his high, white brow with her jeweled slender white hand.

It made her heart ache to see how thin and wasted he was, and to think that her cruelty had wrought the change.

His hollow dark eyes were turned toward the open window, watching the rosy-purple sky with a far-off look.

Suddenly she saw his whole face change as with a spasm, and his lips contract as with pain. She knew that memory had reasserted itself, by the anguish in his eyes.

Impulsively she stooped and pressed her lips to his brow, and it was not all her fancy that he shrunk from the caress.

“My son!” she cried, entreatingly; but there was no reply, and she continued: “Forgive me!”

She knelt down by his side and put her arms around him. The proud, beautiful woman had never humbled herself like this to any one before in all her life.

“St. George, listen to me,” she murmured, tremulously, but he could not speak. She felt his whole form shaking with emotion.

She cried out, tenderly:

“Oh, my son, I see that you remember everything, and you shrink from me. You feel that I was hard and cruel, and I know now that I was wrong, that I had no right to write you that cruel letter. My heart almost broke when I heard of your illness, and I came to you at once—your father with me—to tell you that we repent our harshness and wish to atone.”

No answer yet, and she felt the wasted form heaving beneath the touch with heavy, repressed sobs that it seemed unmanly to utter.

“St. George, do you understand me, my dear?” she murmured, tenderly. “We repent our harshness, we withdraw our objections to your marriage. Whoever the girl is—and we feel that she must be good and pure, or she would not be our son’s choice—we will take her to our hearts for your sake.”

She paused for his answer, but it was only a succession of heavy sobs, such as can only burst from the breast of a man who gives up the struggle against emotion and lets the storm sweep him away.

It was a tempest of grief before which the grieving mother was appalled.

She put her arms around him and wept with him in passionate sympathy.

Mr. Beresford stole back to the room so quietly that neither heard him. He hovered over them in perplexity of grief.

At length he saw that the tempestuous sobs were stifled by a manly will, and St. George answered, faintly, to his mother’s implorings:

“Alas! it is too late.”

“No, no, my son! Do not grieve my heart with such cruel words!” she cried. “You will soon be strong enough to come home with us, and then you shall marry when you will. Shall I write to Alva to seek out your betrothed and bring her home to greet you when we return?”

A strangled sob shook the invalid’s form.

“Oh, mother, how good you are to me—just like an angel! I forgive all that there is to forgive, and—there will never be any more discord between us, please Heaven. I shall never have any one to love henceforth but you three—for—for—she is dead!”

“Great Heaven!” cried his mother, in amazement.

“She is dead,” he repeated, with the calmness of despair. “That was the secret of my sickness, dear mother. They wrote to me just after I sent you my last letter, that she was dead—my pure, beautiful little love! There, I can not talk of it even to you, dear, and—— But there is father with a letter.”