It is out of the power of fortune or of fate to excite such feelings within me now as pressed upon my heart for some days after this scene. I thank God for it. Human strength or weakness could not again endure so dreadful a conflict of brute passion and of human feeling. That piteous face raised to mine would not depart from me. That she should kneel,--that she should have been degraded abjectly to crouch before me for forgiveness, for pardon, for the vilest pity,--and that I should know and feel that the base expiation was the poorest recompense--oh! I cannot pursue this farther. Some days after this,--it was on a Sunday forenoon,--Mrs. Martin entered the room. She took a seat opposite to me. "I am come to speak with you, Mr. Saville," she said. "Well, madam, proceed." "Mrs. Saville, my mistress, sir, is dying." I spoke not for some minutes, although I was not altogether unprepared for a communication of this nature. "You will take the child to her, madam; she will wish to see him." "Oh, sir, she has seen him every day since she came here, and he is with her now. You will not be offended, sir, if I tell you that she has seen him many times within the last two years. Yes, sir, when you were----" "Mad, madam!--speak plainly!--I _was_ mad." "She came, sir, to me, and fell at my feet, imploring to see the child, and I could not refuse her. I could not bear that my mistress should kneel to me, and not be permitted to behold her own son;" and here the woman wept bitterly. "It is very well," said I, after a pause; "I do not blame you. It is better, perhaps, that it should have been so." "Could I prevail upon you, sir?" she continued, wiping her eyes; "might I be so bold as to hope----" I anticipated the woman's thoughts. "She has expressed no wish that I should see her, Mrs. Martin." "She does not mention your name even to me," said she; "but she must not die without seeing you;--she _must_ not, Mr. Saville." My nature at times was changed from what it had been since I was released from the mad-house. I cast a glance at the woman, which she understood and feared. "Mention not this subject again, madam, and leave me. I would be alone." I was disturbed by what the housekeeper had told me. She was dying. It was well. I wished her to die. I felt that until she was dead, my heart could not be brought to forgive her. I walked out, and bent my steps towards the lodging which Hastings had formerly occupied. I found the woman of the house at home, and, with a calmness which I have since marvelled at, I drew from her all the particulars of their sojourn at her house. They had been living with her about ten months before the death of Hastings, who, she understood, had been entirely deserted by his relations, but why she knew not. About a month previous to the decease of Hastings, he came home one night, saying that he had been waylaid by a ruffian and much injured, and he had never risen from his bed again.