Gwen's idea honestly was to drop the curtain, and her half-dozen words were meant for the merest epilogue. When she said:—"And he is dead, too?" she only wanted to round off the conversation. She was shocked when the two delicate old hands hers lay between closed upon it almost convulsively, and could hardly believe she heard rightly the articulate sob, rather than speech, that came from the old lady's lips.
"Oh, I hope so—I hope so!"
"Dear Mrs. Picture, you hope so?" For Gwen could not reconcile this with the ideal she had formed of the speaker. At least, she could not be happy now without an explanation.
Then she saw that it would come, given time and a sympathetic listener. "Yes, my dear, I hope so. For what is his life to him—my son—if he is alive? The best I can think of for him, is that he is long dead."
"Both, I hope. Perhaps only mad. Then he would be neither bad nor good. But he was lost for me, and we were well apart: before he was"—she hesitated—"sent away...."
"Sent away! Yes—where?"
"I ought not to tell you this ... but will you promise me?..."
"To tell no one? Yes—I promise."
"I know you will keep your promise." The old lady kept on looking into the beautiful eyes fixed on hers, still caressing the hand she held, and said, after a few moments' silence:—"He was sent to penal servitude, not under his own name. They said his name was ... some short name ... at the trial. That was at Bristol." Then, after another pause, as though she had read Gwen's thoughts in her scared, speechless face:—"It was all right. He deserved his sentence."