Mrs. Winifred Jones was not in her little Welsh cottage; nor was it
night. She was no longer alone. She stood in a court, in full daylight.
She saw before her the judge on his seat, the barristers in wig and
gown, the press reporters with their notebooks and pens, a dense crowd
thronging every portion of the court. And she knew instinctively, before
a word was spoken, without an intimation from the spirit of her son,
that she was standing in the Divorce Court. And she saw there as
co-respondent her son, older, changed in face, but more altered in
expression. And she heard a tale unfolded--full of dishonour, and
rousing disgust.
She was now able to raise her hands--she covered her ears; her face,
crimson with shame, sank on her bosom. She could endure the sight, the
words spoken, the revelations made, no longer, and she cried out:
"Aneurin! Aneurin! for the Lord's sake, no more of this! Oh, the day,
the day, that I have seen you standing here."
At once all passed; and she was again in her bedroom in Honeysuckle
Cottage, North Wales, seated with folded hands on her lap, and looking
before her wonderingly at the ghostly form of her son.
"Is that enough, mother?"
She lifted her hands deprecatingly.
Again he shook the glimmering white sheet, and it was as though drops of
pearly fire fell out of it.
And again--all was changed.
She found herself at Monte Carlo; she knew it instinctively. She was in
the great saloon, where were the gaming-tables. The electric lights
glittered, and the decorations were superb. But all her attention was
engrossed on her son, whom she saw at one of the tables, staking his
last napoleon.
It was indeed her own Aneurin, but with a face on which vice and its
consequent degradation were written indelibly.
He lost, and turned away, and left the hall and its lights. His mother
followed him. He went forth into the gardens. The full moon was shining,
and the gravel of the terraces was white as snow. The air was fragrant
with the scent of oranges and myrtles. The palms cast black shadows on
the soil. The sea lay still as if asleep, with a gleam over it from the
moon.
Mrs. Winifred Jones tracked her son, as he stole in and out among the
shrubs, amid the trees, with a sickening fear at her heart. Then she saw
him pause by some oleanders, and draw a revolver from his pocket and
place it at his ear. She uttered a cry of agony and horror, and tried to
spring forward to dash the weapon from his hand.
Then all changed.
She was again in her little room in the dusk, and the shadowy form of
Aneurin was before her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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