Wide as had always been the breach--I can find no other word to express the attitude we held towards each other--between Mrs. Fortress and myself, it grew wider as time progressed. We seldom addressed a word to each other. To do her justice she seemed to desire a more familiar intercourse as little as I did. Her demeanour was consistently respectful, and she did not exercise her authority obtrusively or offensively. Everything went on in the house as usual. My wants were attended to with regularity, and I may even say that they were anticipated. To all outward appearance I had nothing whatever to complain of, but the independence of spirit which develops with our manhood, the consciousness that we are strong enough to depend upon ourselves and to walk alone, the growing pride which imparts a true or false confidence in our maturing powers--all these were in silent rebellion within me, and rendered me at times restless and dissatisfied. What it might have led to is hard to say, but the difficulty was solved without action on my part. Within twelve months of my father's death I was a free man, free to go whither I would, to choose my own mode of life, to visit new lands if I cared. The chains which had bound me fell loose, and I was my own master. It was in the dead of a hot summer night, and I was sitting alone by the window in my favourite room. The sultry air scarcely stirred the curtains, and I saw in the sky the signs of a coming storm. I hoped it would burst soon; I knew that I should welcome with gratitude the rain and the cooler air. Such sweet, fresh moments, when an oppressively hot day has drawn to its close, may be accepted--with a certain extravagance of metaphor, I admit--as Nature's purification of sin. All was still and quiet; only shadows lived and moved about. Midnight struck. That hour to me was always fraught with mysterious significance. From where I sat I could see the house in which my mother lay. It had happened on that day, as I strolled through the woods, that I had been witness of the love which a mother had for her child. The child was young, the mother was middle-aged, and not pretty, but when she looked at her child, and held out her arms to receive it, as it ran laughing towards her with its fair hair tumbled about its head, her plain face became glorified. Its spiritual beauty smote me with pain; the child's glad voice made me tremble. Some dim sense of what had never been mine forced itself into my soul. I had the power--which I had no doubt unconsciously cultivated--of raising pictures in the air, and I called up now this picture of the mother and her child. "Are all children like that," I thought, "and are all mothers--except me and mine?" If so, I had been robbed. The door of the great house slowly opened, and the form of a woman stepped forth. It walked in my direction, and stopped beneath my window. "Are you up there, Master Gabriel?" It was Mrs. Fortress who spoke. "Yes, I am here."