"It is dreadful that I should have to say these things to you," says Mrs. Byng, in a voice of the strongest revolt and ire against her destiny--"insult you in this unprovoked way; but, in point of fact, you are the only person in the world who can convince him that--that--it is impossible--that it cannot be. Of course he will be very urgent and pressing, and I know how persuasive he is. Do not you suppose that I, his own mother, know how hard it is to refuse him anything? and of course, in his present weak state, it must be very carefully done. He could not stand any violent contradiction. You would have to be very gentle; dear me!"--with a fresh access of angry remorse--"as if you ever could be anything else." This compliment also its pale object receives in silence. "You know one has always heard that there are two kinds of 'No,'" goes on Mrs. Byng with another dwarfish laugh, which has a touch of the hysteric in it--"a woman's 'No,' as it is called, that means 'Yes'; and a 'No' which anyone--which even _he_--must understand to be final. If you _could_--I dare say I am asking you an impossibility--but if you _could_ make him understand that this time it is final!" There is a silence between them. An unrulier billow than usual, yet more masterless in its Titan play, is hurling itself with a colossal thud and bang against the causeway; and Elizabeth waits till its clamour is subsided before she speaks. "Yes," she answers slowly, "I understand; thank you for telling me what you wish. I think I may promise that I shall be able to--that I shall make him understand that it is final." A moment or two later they are on their way back to the Amirauté. The ocean is at its glorious pastimes all around them; the hill-climbing, shining town smiles upon them from its slope; but upon both has fallen a blindness. The feelings of Mrs. Byng are perhaps the least enviable of the two. They are nearly back at the beginning of the breakwater, when she stops short. Probably when cool reflection comes, when she is removed from the charm and pathos of Elizabeth's meek white presence, lovely and unreproachful, she will not repent her work; but at the present moment of impulse and remorse she feels as if the expunging of the last half-hour would be cheaply purchased by the sacrifice of six months of her remaining life. "I suppose it is not the least use my asking you to try and forgive me--to make allowances for me?" she says, with unsteady-toned humility; "oh, _how_ you must hate me! If the case were reversed, _how_ I should hate you! How you will hate me all your life!" The tears are rolling down her cheeks, and in an instant Elizabeth's hand has gone out to her. As it does so, the grotesque regret flashes across the elder woman's mind that any future daughter-in-law of hers will be most unlikely to be the possessor of such a hand.