I rose involuntarily, in great perturbation.
"Tell Mr. Pendarves," said my mother, "that I will wait on him directly. Helen, my child! it is but one struggle more, and all the difficulty will be over; for I conclude, you, not only in obedience to my will, but in compliance with your own wise wishes, refuse to see him!"
What could I say? Could I tell her that the meeting of yesterday, and his subsequent conduct towards his mother's dependants, had altered my feelings? I could not do it, and I remained above stairs.
After a long conference, my mother came back to me, and I heard the hall-door close. Till this moment, I had hoped she would relent, and allow me to see him! at least, I guess so, from the cold chill which I felt at my heart, when I heard the noise of the closed door. However, I saw him from the window—I myself unseen—and his handkerchief was held to his eyes.
When my mother returned, I observed that she had been excessively moved, and the traces of recent tears were on her cheeks.
"Helen!" she at length said, "I trust I have done by Seymour Pendarves what I should wish a friend to do by a child of mine. And is he not her child—the child of that lost, matchless being, whom I loved only second to yourself, since one dearer than either was removed from me? Yes; I admonished him as a mother would have done; and though I refused his request, I did it—indeed I did—with gentleness and with anguish. Helen," she resumed, "if ever you should doubt the affections of your mother, remember what, for your sake, she has undergone this day. She has, though her heart bled to do it, wounded that of one whom she loves now next to yourself, and that one, too, the child of her adored Lady Helen. But the sense of a mother's duty, aided by a higher power, has supported me through it."
"And he is gone!"
"Yes; and he reproached me bitterly for my cruelty, Helen; but if he could see me now, do you think he would censure me for hardness of heart?"
Mournful were the hours that followed, and we retired early to rest. But my mother rested not. I heard her walking backward and forward in her room till near day-break; and till she had ceased I was too uneasy to close my eyes.
When I rose the next day, and was walking in the garden before breakfast, I found my mother's windows still shut, and it was very late before she came down stairs. I had previously felt disposed to indulge my own dejection; but as soon as I saw her, all thought of myself vanished. For never did I see the expression of hopeless grief stronger than in her speaking face. As she did not talk, I vainly tried to converse of indifferent things. She smiled; but every smile was succeeded by a sigh; and once she exclaimed,