"He is coming to-day, is he? Early this morning? I will stay with you, if you like." Janetta was glad of the offer, although it gave her an uneasy feeling that the end was nearer than she thought. CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE LAST SCENE. "She does not know you," Dr. Burroughs said, when, a few hours later, Wyvis bent over his mother's pillow and looked into her quiet, care-lined face. "Will she never know me?" asked the young man in a tone of deep distress. "My poor mother! I must tell her how sorry I am for the pain that I have often given her." "She may be conscious for a few minutes by-and-bye," the doctor said. "But consciousness will only show that the end is near." There was a silence in the room. Mrs. Brand had now lain in a stupor for many hours. Wyvis had been greeted on his arrival with sad news indeed: his mother and wife were seriously ill, and the doctor acknowledged that he did not think Mrs. Brand likely to live for many hours. Wyvis had not been allowed to enter his wife's room, Juliet had to be kept very quiet, lest the haemorrhage should return. He was almost glad of the respite; he dreaded the meeting, and he was anxious to bestow all his time upon his mother. Janetta had told him something about what had passed; he had heard an outline, but only an outline, of the sad story, and it must be confessed that as yet he could not understand it. It was perhaps difficult for a man to fathom the depths of a woman's morbid misery, or of a doating mother's passionate and unreasonable love. He grieved, however, over what was somewhat incomprehensible to him, and he thought once or twice with a sudden sense of comfort that Janetta would explain, Janetta would make him understand. He looked round for her when this idea occurred to him; but she was not in the room. She did not like to intrude upon what might be the last interview between mother and son, for she was firmly persuaded that Mrs. Brand would recover consciousness, and would tell Wyvis in her own way something of what she had thought and felt; but she was not far off, and when Wyvis sent her a peremptory message to the effect that she was wanted, she came at once and took up her position with him as watcher beside his mother's bed. Janetta was right. Mrs. Brand's eyes opened at last, and rested on Wyvis' face with a look of recognition. She smiled a little, and seemed pleased that he was there. It was plain that for the moment she had quite forgotten the events of the last few hours, and the first words that she spoke proved that the immediate past had completely faded from her mind. "Wyvis!" she faltered. "Are you back again, dear? And is--is your father with you?" "I am here, mother," Wyvis answered. He could say nothing more. "But your father----" Then something--a gleam of reawakening memory--seemed to trouble her; she looked round the room, knitted her brows anxiously, and murmured a few words that Wyvis could not hear.