Absence from England gave me not the smallest respite from the grief that was destroying me.

My parting with my mother was a very pathetic one.  She was greatly changed, and I knew why.  The furrows Time sets on the face can never be mistaken for those which are caused by the passions.  The struggle between pride and remorse had been going on apace; her sufferings had been as great as my own.

It was in Rome we parted.  We were sitting in the cool, perfumed atmosphere of St. Peter’s, and for the moment a soothing wave seemed to pass over my soul.  For some little time there had been silence between us.  At length I said, ’Mother, it seems strange indeed for me to have to say to you that you blame yourself too much for the part you took in the tragedy of Winnie.  When you sent her into Wales you didn’t know that her aunt was dead; you did it, as you thought, for her good as well as for mine.’

She rose as if to embrace me, and then sank down again.

’But you don’t know all, Henry; you don’t know all.  I knew her aunt was dead, though Shales did not, or he would never have taken her.  All that concerned me was to get her away before your own recovery.  I thought there might be relatives of hers or friends whom Shales might find.  But I was possessed by a frenzied desire to get her away.  For years my eyes had been fixed on the earldom.  I had been told by your aunt that Cyril was consumptive, and also that he was very unlikely to marry.’

I could not suppress a little laugh.  ’Ha, ha!  Cyril consumptive!  No man’s stronger and sounder, I am glad to tell you; but if by ill-chance he should die and the title should come to me, then, mother, I’ll wear the coronet, and it shall be made of the best gingerbread gilt and ornamented thus.  I’ll give public lectures on the British aristocracy and its origin, and its present relations to the community, and my audience shall consist of society—­that society which is so much to aunt and the likes of her.  Society shall be my audience, and then, after my course of lectures is over, I will join the Gypsies.  But pray pardon me, mother.  I had no idea I should thus lose my temper.  I should not have lost it so entirely had I not witnessed how you are suffering from the tyranny of this blatant bugbear called “Society."’

’My suffering, Henry, has brought me nearer to your line of thought than you may suppose.  It has taught me that when the affections are deeply touched everything which before had seemed so momentous stands out in a new light, that light in which the insignificance of the important stands revealed.  In that terrible conflict between you and me on the night following the landslip, you spoke of my “cruel pride.”  Oh, Henry, if you only knew how that cruel pride had been wiped out of existence by remorse, I believe that even you would forgive me.  I believe that even she would if she were here.’

’I told you that I had entirely forgiven you, mother, and that I was sure Winnie would forgive you if she were alive.’