"My boy!" said Mrs. Hart, grasping the hand that held hers convulsively--"my boy! can you bear it?"
"Where is my mother?" asked Lord Chetwynde.
Mrs. Hart struggled up. For a moment she leaned on her elbow. In her eyes there gleamed the light of undying love--love deep, yearning, unfathomable--love stronger than life. It was but a faint whisper that escaped her wan, white lips, but that whisper pierced to the soul of the listener, and rang through all his being with echoes that floated down through the years.
And that whisper uttered these words:
"_Oh, my son_! _I--I--am your mother_!"
A low moan burst from Lord Chetwynde. He caught her dying form in his arms, and a thousand words of love burst from him, as though by that embrace and by those words of love he would drag her back from her immortality. And then, at last, in that embrace and in the hearing of those words of love, there were some few moments of happiness for one who had sinned and suffered so much; and as she lay back her face was overspread with an expression of unutterable peace.
When Zillah returned she saw Lord Chetwynde bowed down, with his arms clasping the form of Mrs. Hart. The smile was still on her face, but it was only the form of that one who had suffered and loved so much which now lay there; for she herself had departed from earth forever, and found a place "where the weary are at rest."
***
Long afterward Zillah learned more about the past history of that woman whom she had known and loved as Mrs. Hart. It was Obed Chute who told her this, on one of his frequent visits to Chetwynde Castle. He himself had heard it from the former Lady Chetwynde, at the time when she was in New York, and before she joined the Sisters of Charity.
Neville Pomeroy had known her well as a boy, and they had carried on an unmeaning flirtation, which might have developed into something more serious had it not been prevented by her mother, who was on the look-out for something higher. Lord Chetwynde met her ambitious views, and though he was poor, yet his title and brilliant prospects dazzled the ambitious mother. The daughter married him without loving him, in the expectation of a lofty position. When this was lost by Lord Chetwynde's resignation of his position she could not forgive him. She indulged in folly which ended in sin, until she was weak and wicked enough to desert the man whom she had sworn to love. When it was too late she had repented. Neville Pomeroy and Obed Chute had saved her from ruin. The remainder of her life was evident. She had left the Sisters of Charity, from some yearning after her child, and had succeeded in gaining employment in Chetwynde Castle. Such changes had been wrought in her by her sufferings that the Earl never recognized her; and so she had lived, solacing herself with her child.