“You have seen your mother, of course,” was his next remark, and, still apologetically, nay, almost abjectly, for Everard was terribly afraid of his father, he replied, “She was sleeping when I came, and Rossie thought I’d better not disturb her, but have my breakfast first. I have finished now, and will go to her at once if she is awake.”
He had put Rossie in the gap, knowing that she was a tower of strength between himself and his father. During the years she had been in the family Rossie had become very dear to the cold, stern judge, who was kinder and gentler to her than to any living being, except, indeed, his dying wife, to whom he was, in his way, sincerely attached.
“Yes, very right and proper that you should have your breakfast first, and not disturb her. Rossie, see if she is now awake,” he said, and in his voice there was a kindliness which Everard was quick to note, and which made his pulse beat more naturally, while there suddenly woke within him an intense desire to stand well with his father, between whom and himself there had been so much variance.
For Josephine’s sake he must have his father’s good opinion, or he was ruined, and though it cost him a tremendous effort to do so, the moment Rosamond left the room, he said: “Father, I want to tell you now, because I think you will be glad to know, that I’ve come home and left no debt, however small, for you to pay. And I mean to do better. I really do, father, and quit my fast associates, and study so hard that when I am graduated you and mother will be proud of me.”
The flushed, eager face, on which, young as it was, there were marks of revels and dissipation, was very handsome and winning, and the dark eyes were moist with tears as the boy finished his confession, which told visibly upon the father.
“Yes, yes, my son. I’m glad; I’m glad; but your poor mother will not be here when you graduate. She is going from us fast.”
And under cover of the dying mother’s name, the judge vailed his own emotions of softening toward Everard, whose heart was lighter and happier than it had been since that night when Matthewson’s voice had said, “I pronounce you man and wife.” And he would be a man worthy of the wife, and his mother should live to see it, and to see Josephine, too, and love her as a daughter. She was not dying; she must not die, when he needed and loved her so much, he thought, as, at a word from Rosamond, he went to the sick room where his mother lay. What a sweet, dainty little woman she was, with such a lovely expression on the exquisitely chiseled features, and how the soft brown eyes, so like the son’s, brightened at the sight of her boy, who did not shrink from her as he did from his father. She knew all his faults, and that under them there was a noble, manly nature, and she loved him so much.
“Oh, Everard!” she cried, “I am so glad you have come. I feared once I should never see you again.”
He had his arms around her, and was kissing her white face, which, for the moment, glowed with what seemed to be the hue of health, and so misled him into thinking her better than she was.
“Now that I have come, mother, you will be well again,” he said, hanging fondly over her, and looking into the dear face which had never worn a frown for him.