Suddenly she saw his whole face change as with a spasm, and his lips contract as with pain. She knew that memory had reasserted itself, by the anguish in his eyes.
Impulsively she stooped and pressed her lips to his brow, and it was not all her fancy that he shrunk from the caress.
“My son!” she cried, entreatingly; but there was no reply, and she continued: “Forgive me!”
She knelt down by his side and put her arms around him. The proud, beautiful woman had never humbled herself like this to any one before in all her life.
“St. George, listen to me,” she murmured, tremulously, but he could not speak. She felt his whole form shaking with emotion.
She cried out, tenderly:
“Oh, my son, I see that you remember everything, and you shrink from me. You feel that I was hard and cruel, and I know now that I was wrong, that I had no right to write you that cruel letter. My heart almost broke when I heard of your illness, and I came to you at once—your father with me—to tell you that we repent our harshness and wish to atone.”
No answer yet, and she felt the wasted form heaving beneath the touch with heavy, repressed sobs that it seemed unmanly to utter.
“St. George, do you understand me, my dear?” she murmured, tenderly. “We repent our harshness, we withdraw our objections to your marriage. Whoever the girl is—and we feel that she must be good and pure, or she would not be our son’s choice—we will take her to our hearts for your sake.”
She paused for his answer, but it was only a succession of heavy sobs, such as can only burst from the breast of a man who gives up the struggle against emotion and lets the storm sweep him away.