"Why not?
How frequently in life do we thus rush ruthlessly upon unsuspected crises in our fates? Leon said these words, with no thought of their import, and with no foreboding of what would follow. How could he guess that from the moment of their utterance his life would be changed, and his boyhood lost to him forever, because of the momentousness of the reply which he invited?
When the woman spoke again, her voice was so low that the youth leaned down to hear her words. She said:
"Leon, you have been a good son to me. But—I am not your mother." Having spoken the words with a sadness in her heart, which found echo in the cadence of her voice, she turned her face wearily away from the youth, and waited for his reply. And he, though astounded by what he had heard, did not at the time fully connect the words with himself, but recognized only the misery which their utterance had caused to the suffering woman. With gentleness as tender as a loving woman's, he turned her face to his, touched her lips with his, and softly said:
"You are my mother! The only mother that I have ever known!" Oh! The weakness of human kind, which, at the touch of a loving hand, the sound of a loving voice, yields up its most sacred principles! This dying woman had lived from birth till now in a secluded New England village, and, imbibing her puritanical instincts from her ancestry, she almost deemed it a sin to smile, or show any outward sign of happiness. She had been a mother to this boy, according to her bigoted ideas; she had been good to him in her own way; but she had kissed him but once, and then he was going upon a journey. Yet now, as overcome by his intense sympathy, his long-suppressed love welled out from his heart toward her, with a happy cry she nestled close within his arms, and cried for joy, a joy that was hers for the first time, yet which might have illumined all her declining days, had she not brushed it away from her.
A long silence ensued, presently broken by the woman, as she slowly related the following story.
"Years ago, no matter how many, I was a pretty woman, and a vain one. I had admirers, but I loved none as I loved myself. But at last one came, and then my life was changed. I loved him, and I began to despise myself. For the more I saw and loved him, the less likely it seemed that he could love me. I used all my arts in vain. My prettiest frocks, my most coquettish glances, were all wasted on him. It seemed to me that I had not even made him see that I might be won, if he would woo. He went away, and I thought that I would never meet him again, for he had been but a summer visitor. My heart was broken, and besides my pride was hurt, for I suffered the bitterness of being taunted with my failure by my sisters. A year later, he came to me again. Several months before, I had gone to live in Boston, but in some way he had found me out. To my surprise, he told me that he knew that I loved him. He said that he had not offered me his love, because he was already married. Then he asked me to do him a favor. I gladly assented, without knowing what he would ask, for I would have sacrificed anything for him, I loved him so. The next day he brought me a beautiful baby boy. He told me it was his, that his wife was ill, and that he wished me to care for the baby for a year, whilst he went to Europe. I undertook the charge, without considering the consequences. I returned to the farm, bound to secrecy as to the child's parentage. Very soon I discovered that my friends shunned me, and then I learned that by taking you, Leon, I had lost my good name. Well! I did not care. You were his baby! You had his eyes, and so my heart grew hard against the world, but I determined to keep the baby whose fingers had already gripped my heart. Then, shut out from all friendships, scorned even by my sisters to whom I had refused to make any explanation, I began to pray that something, anything, would happen so that you should not be taken from me. My wicked prayer was answered, for later I learned that the young mother had died, and I was to continue caring for you. At first my joy was very great, but soon I recognized, that you were mine only because I had prayed for the death of your mother. The Lord had granted my wish, as an everlasting punishment for my sinful longing. Thenceforward, however much I yearned to press you to my heart, I have not dared to do so. I have tried to accept the chastisement of the Lord with meekness of spirit. And so I have had my wish! I have kept you with me, ever to be a reproach for my sin. But I thank the Lord, that at the end he has allowed me to have one full moment of happiness. He has granted me the boon to see that my boy has learned to love me in spite of all my harshness. You have kissed me, Leon, and called me mother. Oh! God! Thy will be done!"
Then with a smile almost of beatitude, she sank down lower, and nestled closer to her long-denied love. Leon stooped and kissed her again, but did not speak. His heart was full, and his emotions rose within his breast, so that he felt a curious sensation of fulness in his throat, which warned him not to essay speech.
In silence they remained so for a time, not computed by either. She was lost in thoughts such as have been aroused in many hearts by the poet's magic words, "It might have been!" This boy was his, and might have been hers, if——! Ah! What chasms have been bridged by these two letters, which form this little, mighty word!
Leon began to grasp, but slowly, all that the future would hold for him with the added knowledge granted to him this night. He pondered over the past, and remembering how stern had been his life, and how austere had been the manner of this woman who had been his mother, and adding up the sum of all, he wondered that he had found such love for her within his heart. For his love had been recognized by himself as suddenly as he had given fervent expression to it, when he embraced that mother who denied her motherhood. If the poet's words which I have quoted conceal a thought of sadness within their meaning, what woe resides within the thought encompassed by those other words, "Too late!" To both of these, the woman and the boy, the recognition of the joys of love, had come too late. As this thought at last penetrated the mind of the dreaming youth, he started, awakening from his abstraction. At the same moment, the lamp flared up, flickered, and went out. Then as darkness enshrouded him, so deep that he almost felt it touch his brow, he shivered, and a long moan escaped him followed by an anguished cry: