"Nothing?"
"No. If I took advantage of what Mrs. Belk told me to hang her son, I should never have a moment's peace for the rest of my life!"
"But Kaituna?"
"She will think the same as I do," said Maxwell, quickly. "And you, Mrs. Belswin--surely you would not counsel otherwise?"
Mrs. Belswin looked heavenward with a look of almost sublime pity on her strongly marked face.
"No; I am a mother, and I know how a mother feels for her only child."
[CHAPTER XXXI.]
A TRAGIC SITUATION.
"A deed's to be done. There is sin in the doing.
Oh, see how the mother her child is pursuing!
She smites him unknowing. Oh, mother, blind mother,
Thy son thou hast slain--not the son of another!
The deed thou hast done bodes a life-time of rueing;
Thy son thou hast slaughtered, as Cain did his brother!"
It was on Friday morning that Mrs. Belk had her fatal interview with Maxwell--fatal indeed to her son, to benefit whom that same interview had been sought for. Had she not been of such a secretive disposition she would have told Samson of the finding of the jewel and how she intended to obtain money thereon as a clue to the assassin of Sir Rupert, in which case he would doubtless have prevented her doing so.