"My dearest boy! you are talking wildly. There are no circumstances, none! in which I should not stand by you."
"That is what I thought," he said, "you and—But they say that you don't know, you women, how bad a man can be: and that if you knew—And then as for God——"
"God knows everything, Walter."
"Ay: and knows that never in my life did I care for or appeal to Him, till in despair. If you think of it, these are not things a man can do, mother: take refuge with women who would loathe him if they knew; or with God, who does know that only in desperation, only when nothing else is left to him, he calls out that name like a spell. Yes, that is all; like an incantation, to get rid of the fiend."
The veins were swollen on Walter's forehead; great drops of moisture hung upon it; on the other hand his lips were parched and dry, his eyes gleaming with a hot treacherous lustre. Mrs. Methven, as she looked at him, grew sick with terror. She began to think that his brain was giving way.
"What am I to say to you?" she cried; "who has been speaking so? It cannot be a friend, Walter. That is not the way to bring back a soul."
He laughed, and the sound alarmed her still more.
"There was no friendship intended," he said, "nor reformation either. It was intended—to make me a slave."
"To whom, oh! to whom?"
He had relieved his mind by talking thus; but it was by putting his burden upon her. She was agitated beyond measure by these partial confidences. She took his hands in hers, and pleaded with him—