"I do not know. Sometimes I think that all will hate me,—here and hereafter—except you. Lucius will hate me, and how shall I bear that? Oh, Mrs. Orme, I wish he knew it!"
"I wish he did. He shall know it now,—to-night, if you will allow me to tell him."
"No. It would kill me to bear his looks. I wish he knew it, and was away, so that he might never look at me again."
"He too would forgive you if he knew it all."
"Forgive! How can he forgive?" And as she spoke she rose again to her feet, and her old manner came upon her. "Do you think what it is that I have done for him? I,—his mother,—for my only child? And after that, is it possible that he should forgive me?"
"You meant him no harm."
"But I have ruined him before all the world. He is as proud as your boy; and could he bear to think that his whole life would be disgraced by his mother's crime?"
"Had I been so unfortunate he would have forgiven me."
"We are speaking of what is impossible. It could not have been so. Your youth was different from mine."
"God has been very good to me, and not placed temptation in my way;—temptation, I mean, to great faults. But little faults require repentance as much as great ones."