"Failure in love affairs can 'spoil' no lives of those who maintain consciousness of moral rectitude, and a justifiable self-respect; but occasionally such keen disappointments prove beneficent tonics in teaching a wise discrimination between sham and reality, shadow and substance. Sooner or later men and probably women learn that the only human tie that even death cannot dissolve, the one reliable chain that no treacherous weak link can impair--is that binding the mother's heart to her child. In desperately bitter trials mother-love is the strengthening angel that sustains, and when the world turned its back upon me, my blessed mother was my sole solace and defender." "Because knowing something of the truth she could not doubt. To her at least you had given facts withheld even from----" "Pardon me. She was as absolutely ignorant as you, as all others who accused me. When that whirlwind of slander overwhelmed me I told her only what I made known to the woman who was my betrothed. When with tears streaming over her face she took me in her arms and asked: 'My boy, are you guilty?' I could say only that I was entirely innocent, but bound by a solemn oath never to betray facts committed to me under seal of professional confidence; facts that involved two broken-hearted women and a noble old man, my friend in fatherless, needy boyhood whom I had sworn to shield from disgrace and ruin. My mother lifted my face, looked steadily into my eyes and raised one hand: 'My son, you swear to me on your honor as a gentleman, on the honor of my boy Royal, that this is true--that you would be a traitor to divulge the facts proving your innocence?' She kissed me when that oath passed my lips, and from that hour she abstained from all questioning; she clung tenderly to me, believing in my innocence as she believed in the existence of her God. You had the same assurance, all that I could honorably give. Mother-love held through all assaults, no link gave way;--but yours? The chain snapped at the first taut strain--crumbled like sand." She had grown very white, and unconsciously her fingers lifted the quivering fiery stones that bound her throbbing throat. "Let the ashes of long dead injuries rest over all that once disquieted you. If you had only trusted me I should have held the secret inviolate even to the gates of death."