"I recollect, now, I put it in my pocket when it came--I wasn't very well at the time--and afterwards I forgot all about it. I did, upon my honor!"
"Open it and read it," was all Hermia could say.
When he had done so, he looked at her with a question in his eyes which his lips seemed afraid to ask.
"Your mother died three days ago," said Hermia, "looking to the last for the son who never came."
He turned away, and putting up an arm against the door-post, he leaned his head upon it. The tears that dropped from his eyes made tiny black dents in the grimy dust into which they fell.
"I've not one word of excuse, Miss Hermia, to urge for myself," he said presently. "I put the letter in my pocket, and forgot all about it. It was all owing to the drink--the cursed drink!"
Thereupon Hermia proceeded to give him his mother's last message.
"God bless her! She was a good woman," he said, sorrowfully. "Maybe, if I had been a different son to her she would have lived for years to come."
That he was genuinely moved by the news of his mother's death it was impossible to doubt.
"The errand which brought me here is not yet completed," said Hermia, presently. "Your mother entrusted me with a sum of money to give into your hands."