As he passed down one of the corridors, a tall lady in black suddenly opened one of the doors and appeared before him. She was very pale, and her dark eyes were gleaming as though she were laboring under strong mental excitement.
She looked at John Temple, and then came out on the corridor and confronted him.
“So,” she said, “you have come to take my boy’s place?”
Then John knew at once who she was. This was his uncle’s wife, the bereaved mother, who had lost her only child. He bowed low, and a look of pity came into his gray eyes.
“I have felt very much,” he said, “for your great grief.”
“It has benefited you, at any rate,” she answered, bitterly.
“I can not feel it a benefit at such a cost.”
She looked at him keenly as he said this, and then her faced softened.
“You can not tell what he was to me,” she murmured in a broken voice; “my only one, my only one!”