Unable to bear any longer the silence and suspense, Mrs. Gregory crept close to him. 'Tom!' she said.
He looked up. There was reproach in his eyes, but no anger, and she breathed more freely. 'Why did you do it, mother?' he said sorrowfully. 'Could you not have trusted the dead?'
'Listen to me!' she said. 'Dear, I don't want to justify myself. I have sinned and I must bear my punishment. I have borne it, God knows, through these two awful years. But I may not have been quite so guilty as you think. When I saw you go out that night, I had no thought of robbing you. You left me alone. Oh! Tom, you shouldn't have done it, you shouldn't! There was a presence in the house that night. I felt it as soon as you had gone, and I fought with it for you. You were mine; I had brought you up; I had cared for you all these years; you were everything I had; I couldn't bear that you should be taken from me even for a larger life. That was my sin, not the other. My son, I am telling you a strange thing, but I give you my word that it is true. When I left the candle burning in the passage and went to your room, I was in a trance—I must have been, for I have no remembrance of it, not the least. Often and often since, I have tried to think myself back into that few minutes, and I cannot. The first thing I remember is the cry of fire. I was not in your room then, I was on the stairs. The girls caught me and dragged me out. Then, while we stood on the lawn together, I felt that against my side.'
'You should have given it to me then, mother.'
'Do I not know it, my son? Have I not said, so to myself a thousand times? God knows I should have been saved a host of troubles if I had. But I could not. Do you see how it was? I had not taken them. They had been given to me by a mysterious agency, and it seemed to me like a sign that you were to be mine still. Then you went away, and I saw from your letter, that his life, his ideas, his people were taking possession of you. At last came the letter from Lucknow, which told me only too clearly what I had seemed to know already, that you belonged to me and to England no longer. Then I made up my mind to tell you the secret of your birth, and, if it should please a merciful God to bring you home safely, to give you up the papers. Are you satisfied?'
The question was in response to a softened look in his face.
'Yes, mother,' he said. 'I am satisfied. Love blinded you for a time; but justice and rectitude, which should be stronger even than love, have opened your eyes.'
'That is a man's view, not a woman's,' she said, looking up at him with dewy eyes. 'But good-night. I am tired. Take my advice, and keep the papers till to-morrow. There is no danger of your losing them again, and here, you see, is a fire-proof safe, where you can put them if you like.'
'Thank you, mother,' said Tom, smiling to see her look and speak like herself again. 'Good-night! You will sleep well, I am sure!'
'Well! With you in the house, and that gone! It will be like Paradise. If only you knew what I have gone through! But I mustn't talk of it, now. Good-night, my son.'