“I have no wish, mother, to hunt down this or any other woman; but a terrible murder has been committed, a murder the more terrible because of its motiveless and mysterious character. I have been called in as counsel to those who are seeking to unravel this mystery and punish the murderer, and it’s my duty to use every means to accomplish this end.”
“Then you are hunting this woman out and will expose her nakedness to the world!” The words were a cry, that had its force even more in the tone than in the words themselves.
“I am certainly endeavouring to discover the woman. I could do no less under the circumstances. I think I have a fair prospect of success.”
She rose from her chair and looked at him strangely and despairingly. Then she turned towards the door.
“I will go,” she said. “This is no place for me. I will go.”
He looked at her coldly, almost repellantly, as he said, checking her:
“Mother, what does this mean?”
No man who had once seen it, could forget the look she gave him. There was heartbreak in it; there was more than that, there was the crushing back of a life-long pride.
“What can it mean?” she asked.
His head fell on his breast. He had never guessed before the bitterness that life can have, that a moment of time can bring. She never took her eyes from his. Whatever the sentence, she would meet it as became her past. Slowly his head came up; slowly the misery in his eyes rose to hers. Then he came and laid his lips on her forehead and said: