"I am his mother, poor child. God help me, I am his mother!"
The young girl sat gazing up into that aged face, so pale, so still, that her very quietude was more painful than a burst of passion could have been.
"His mother!" broke from her parted lips. "It is his mother who calls him a villain!"
"Even so," said the old lady, with mournful intensity. "Look up, girl, and see what it costs a mother to say these things of an only son!"
Florence did look up, and when she saw the anguish upon that face usually so calm, her heart filled with tender pity, notwithstanding the tumult already there, and taking the old lady's hands in hers, she bent down and kissed them.
"If you are indeed his mother," she said, with a sort of fond anguish, "to-morrow you will unsay these bitter words—you are only angry with him now—something has gone wrong. You will not repeat such things of him to-morrow—for oh, they have made me wretched."
"I am cruel only that I may be kind!" said the old lady with mournful earnestness. "And now, dear child, let us talk no more, you are grieved, and I suffer more than you think."
With these words, the old lady arose and led her guest from the room.