“I know it. It is a heavy penalty to pay for those few weeks of forgetfulness, of lunacy, of fever; but hardly so heavy to bear as the loss of the love and esteem of the only woman in the world I ever loved, or am likely to love.”
“Whom are you talking about?” hastily demanded Mrs. Desfrayne, a new spasm of jealousy seizing her heart.
But Paul would not answer.
He rested his arms on the back of the chair, and laid his head on the support thus made. This attitude brought vividly back to his mother’s mind the days of his childhood and youth, when he had been all her own. How often had she seen him thus, when he had been guilty of some youthful fault or folly, and was penitent, yet half-afraid he should not easily find pardon!
Mrs. Desfrayne’s heart was irresistibly drawn toward her boy. With a soft, gentle touch, she laid one of her white, jeweled hands on his head.
“Do you speak of me?” she asked. “Ah! Paul, it is ten thousand pities that, having committed this fatal mistake, you did not confide in me before. What a miserable future is before you; but you must not give way. It must be borne. I do not reproach you. Nay, I will give you such comfort as I can.”
Paul caught her hands, and covered them with kisses.
“Would that I had—would that I had told you, mother!” he cried, looking up into her face with his open, candid eyes, from which some of the black care had melted. “That terrible secret has stood between me and you like some malignant black specter.”
“I dimly felt its presence now and again,” said his mother, “though I could not believe it possible you could deceive me. But tell me, what do you mean to do?”
“Nothing. What can I do?”