Finally he told his mother. He begged her forgiveness for ever having contemplated leaving her after his father’s death, and promised that in the years to come he would try to make it up to her. She clasped him in her arms, and murmured incoherent words of love, as she pressed her face to his dark curls, as a mother does with a baby. “Oh, mother mine, has it meant so much to you?” he asked in sorrow.
“So much more than you can ever know,” she answered, “but this moment compensates for a whole lifetime of suffering!”
After a pause, during which he stroked her hand in silence, Mrs. Malloy said gently, “Robert, I don’t want to rush in where angels would fear to tread, so just stop me if the subject pains you,—but I don’t understand why Margie refused to marry you.”
“She didn’t exactly refuse me, Mother,” he said hesitatingly; and then he told her of their conversation.
His mother regarded him, during the recital, with amazement, amusement, and consternation. When he had finished she observed quietly: “My son, I see I neglected an important part of your education. You are not schooled in woman-lore.”
A little later a telegram went out to Meg from her, saying, “I need you. Come.”
[CHAPTER XVI.]
“To know, to esteem, to love,—and then to part,
Makes up life’s tale to many a feeling heart!”
Valencia, to Meg, had become a barren spot on the map. Nothing relieved the dreary monotony but the nagging tongue of her aunt, who, it would seem, had found her mission in life, that of saying and doing the little things which crucify.