"I am very sorry for you," Vera said, with a mechanical air, as if her thoughts were far away. "Then you will help me?" Mrs. Rutherford cried eagerly. "How can I help you?" "You can appeal to my son. You may have more influence over him than I. I believe you have more influence," with a touch of bitterness. "However indifferent you may be, and may have always been to him, I know that he was devoted to you, that you could have led him, if you had cared to lead him. And he will listen to you now, he will have pity upon me, if you plead for me, if you tell him what it is for a mother to part with the son of nearly forty years' cherishing, who represents all her life on earth, past, present, and to come. I cannot live without him, Vera. I thought that I was strong in faith, and patience, and resignation, till this trouble came upon me. I thought that I was a religious woman; but now I know that the God I worshipped was of clay, and that when I prayed and tried to lift my thoughts to Heaven it was only of my son that I thought, only for his welfare that I prayed. Help me, Vera, if you have a heart that can love and sympathise with another's love. Plead with him, tell him how few the years are for a woman of my age; and that there will be time enough for him to bury himself alive in a monastery when I am at rest. His dedication of those later years will not be less precious in the sight of God, because he has deferred the sacrifice for his mother's sake." "I cannot think that he will listen to me, if he has not yielded to you; I know he loves you dearly." "He did love me--never was there a better son. But he changed all at once. It was as if something had broken his life. But I think you can melt his heart. He will understand my grief better when it is brought home to him by another. I am to see him to-morrow afternoon, and I shall be allowed to take you with me. Will you come?" The entreaty was so insistent, so agonising, that Vera could only bend her head in mute acquiescence. Mrs. Rutherford threw her arms round the frail figure and strained it to her breast. "My dearest girl, I knew you would have pity upon me. I will call for you to-morrow at half-past two. The house is on the hill, beyond the Medici Villa--a lovely spot--but to me, though it is only a place of probation, it seems like a grave. Vera!" with a sudden passion, "if I thought that this step were for his happiness, I believe I could submit; but when I parted with him last week his face was the face of despair. How changed, oh, my God, how changed!" CHAPTER XIX