Mrs. Cameron was a miserable woman. Poor, unhappy, and remorseful, she sat alone in her solitary house--even her one maidservant had left her--thinking dismally of her sad past, mournful present, and hopeless future. On her lap was her son's letter of two months before, the only one he had sent her since he left home to go in search of Doris, and she thought that it would probably be the last one she would ever receive from him.
"I know all that you have done," he wrote, "to destroy my happiness and that of my beloved Doris, and the means by which you sought to separate us for ever in this world, and I write to inform you that your schemes and machinations have failed; for we are engaged to be married, and, there being no longer any obstacle to prevent it, the marriage will take place on the 20th of this month.
"That, I think, is all I need say now, or at any time, to one who has done her utmost to alienate me for life from the one I loved.
"I remain, Mother,
"Your much-wronged Son,
"BERNARD CAMERON."
"A nice letter for a mother to receive!" grumbled the widow. "Yet I know that I deserve it," she added mentally. "I've been too hard--too hard on him, and too hard on other people. If I hadn't been so quarrelsome with my husband, he would not have left most of his money to Bernard, and that wretch John Anderson would not have had the chance of stealing it all. And if I hadn't been so hard on Bernard and on Doris Anderson, I should have retained my boy's love, which would have been better than nothing." She sniffed and passed the back of her bony hand across her tearless eyes. "Yes, it would have been better than nothing, and I might have come in for a bit of his money now he is richer; but, as it is, I've got nothing, neither money, nor love, nor anything at all!"
She looked dismally at the dusk stealing across the room with its threadbare carpet and faded chairs and curtains. There was no servant to come in and light the gas and close the blinds. She was all alone, and so hopeless that she did not care whether the gas was lighted or not. "What matter if it is dark, so long as I have nothing to do but think!" she said to herself, dismally. "They'll have had their honeymoon now, and perhaps will be getting settled in their new home. I wonder where it is? To think that I shouldn't know where my son is going to live! I never thought Bernard would turn against me; and yet--and yet I deserve it, for mine was a crooked policy, directed against all his wishes and ignoring his rights. I told myself I was doing it for him, for his best interests; but really I was doing it more for myself, that he might become rich and be in a position to give his mother a good home; and out of spite, too, against those Andersons, and a determination that Doris should not have him." She paused, listening.
Some street singers were wailing forth the hymn, "O God, our help in ages past!" before the house; but the woman, who had found no help in God, because she had never sought it, was only angered by the sound. Rising and going to the window, she made emphatic signs to the man and woman--the latter with a child in her arms and another clinging to her skirts--to pass on; but they either could not see her in the deepening dusk or would not be persuaded to go away, for they continued singing even more loudly than before.
"Well, I shall not give them anything!" declared Mrs. Cameron, relinquishing the attempt to stop them and returning to her chair by the fireless hearth. "What right have they to come disturbing folks in this way?"