“It is a matter of moment, mother?” he asked anxiously.
Endowed though Charles Matthewson was with that relentless persistence, that knows no conscience save success in the pursuit of a purpose, which had carried the family so far, there was a gentler side to his nature that was wanting in his younger brother. The development of this was peculiarly in his relationship with his mother, who in turn gave him a tenderness of affection of which few dreamed her capable. A desire, born of all that was womanly in her masculine nature, had been fed by this son’s love, which was in strong contrast to the awe and deference accorded her by most of her relatives. It was no easy task for her to turn for aid to any one, but if she was forced to do so, it was naturally to Charles she would go. On the other hand, he knew her well enough to know that an appeal struck its roots deep before it could bring her to such a course.
“Is it you, Charles, who are having this woman hunted down?”
“What woman, mother?” he asked in surprise.
She seemed to find difficulty in answering; but after a struggle, raised her head almost defiantly, and said in a hard, cold voice:
“The mother of Theodore Wing.”
His face hardened in turn to a strange resemblance to her own.
“You have nothing to do with such a woman as that, mother.”
“Every woman has to do with another who is being oppressed and wronged. Why is the dead past of that woman to be laid bare to the world? Are the years since her wrongdoing to count for nothing? Is this generation, that has grown up since all this happened, to be the judge of what she did before it was born? Is my son to be the one to allow the wrong?”
This new phase of his mother’s character struck him strangely and not pleasantly. She was not wont to show large sympathy with her sex, though he would be far from accusing her of hardness or cruelty. Still she had left with him the impression of sympathies and feelings that were rather masculine than feminine; the impressions of one who, accepting the task of fighting her own way in the world, felt it no injustice or wrong to impose the same on others.