I thought she recoiled from me as if in abhorrence. I know that she stepped back from me.
"Why have you come?" she said, and I saw fierce hate gleaming from her eyes. "Have you not caused misery enough? Are you not content with the lives you have poisoned? You went away; why did you ever come back?"
"I could not rest, mother," I said, humbly, for I felt I deserved her reproach. "I wanted to tell you all; I wanted your forgiveness."
"Tell me!" she cried, "as though I did not know. Forgive you, how can I forgive you when but for you my boy might have been——"
"Let me tell you everything, mother," I cried. "God knows I have suffered much for what I have done, but He has forgiven me, and I wanted your forgiveness before I die."
"Do I not know? Have I not heard?" she went on. "Has it not been the talk of the neighbourhood? Have you not ever been my son's enemy? When you were children it was you who had your father's affections, it was you who saved the life of the only one my Wilfred loved, it was you who stood between Wilfred and his right position. It was you who kept Ruth from loving him, and although you went away you were ever the black blot on his life. And now you have come back again. Why? To breathe more poison, to carry out more of your murderous designs."
"No, mother, I have come to atone for the wrong I have done rather than to do more wrong."
"That can never be. You can never atone for the wrong you have done. You were born to curse my son's life, and you have done it. You have stripped my life of happiness, and now you come again, to take away what paltry right, I suppose, you claim."
"But, mother!"
"Call me not 'mother,' you are no son of mine."