“Is that so? Prove it then, Ellen, prove it by having that dress on at eight o’clock this evening. I will have a carriage at the back entrance, and a minister ready. Promise now; if your love for me is the genuine thing, you will.”
“Oh, Mahone, I promise!”
“At eight, then?”
“At eight you will find me here waiting.”
CHAPTER LVIII.
MOTHER AND SON.
When Mrs. Laurence heard this wild cry from her boy, she turned suddenly and held out her arms. The poor little fellow rushed into them, and clung to her, trembling under a fierce effort to be brave and choke back the tears that rushed, hot and painful, to his eyes.
Up to this moment the old woman had been too indignant for sorrow. The grey of her eyes shone out hard and cold as steel; but now a mist stole over them and her whole frame shook visibly.
“James! James! there, there, hush! These men must not see you cry. You have done nothing. I have done nothing. Be brave then, as your mother is.”
James drew his head back, and looked in the old woman’s face, shaking the tears away from his own vision that he might comfort her with an effort to obey and be strong. But the sight of that pale, shocked countenance brought them back with a rush.
“Oh, mother! mother! what will they do to you?”