The boy stared at him wildly.
"Let me go," he said hoarsely, pulling himself away. "Send away these people! leave me alone with my dead!"
"Your dead, young man? Is that woman anything to you?"
"She is my mother!" cried Frank, kneeling by the side of the body, and taking the cold, white hand within his own.
"She is my mother, and I, who basely left her to the hands of others, am responsible for this—I, her most unworthy son!"
[CHAPTER XI.]
AN UNEXPECTED ALLY.
For a moment no one spoke.
The kneeling boy wept by the side of the woman's body upon the floor, the crowd falling back to make way for him of their own accord.