The thought had struck through her mind that if her son died it would have been through her pride and harshness that it had happened.
She had been too imperious and too hasty. She should have tried gentler means with her spoiled but noble and loving boy.
She realized it all too late as she cried out to her anxious husband:
“You must take me to my son. He must forgive me before he dies!”
“We will start at the earliest possible hour,” he replied, huskily.
Most fortunately a steamer was leaving New York that day, and they had no difficulty in securing a first-class passage.
“It will be lonely for you, dear, without us. Perhaps you had better go on to Newport next week, as we had planned,” they said to Alva, who answered, cheerily:
“No—no; I will await your return here. I am not anxious to begin the gay season at the seashore.”
So she remained in the large, splendid mansion with the servants, and the anxious parents set out on their journey.
Oh, those weary days upon the sea, how long they were, how heavily they dragged to those two hearts aching with remorse and grief!