The face he remembered so fair and calm bore deep marks of sorrow; the proud, tender eyes were shadowed; the glossy hair was threaded with silver; but it was his mother's voice that cried to him, "My son, my son, thank Heaven you have returned!" He never remembered how long his mother held him clasped in her arms. Earth has no love like a mother's love--none so tender, so true, so full of sweet wisdom, so replete with pity and pardon. It was her own son whom Lady Earle held in her arms. She forgot that he was a man who had incurred just displeasure. He was her boy, her own treasure, and so it was that her words of greeting were all of loving welcome. "How changed you are," she said, drawing him nearer to the fast-fading light. "Your face is quite bronzed, and you look so many years older--so sad, so worn! Oh, Ronald, I must teach you to grow young and happy again!" He sighed deeply, and his mother's heart grew sad as she watched his restless face. "Old-fashioned copy-books say, mother, that 'to be happy one must be good.' I have not been good," he said with a slight smile, "and I shall never be happy." In the faint waning light, through which the snow gleamed strangely, mother and son sat talking. Lady Earle told Ronald of his father's death--of the last yearning cry when all the pent-up love of years seemed to rush forth and overpower him with its force. It was some comfort to him, after all, that his father's last thoughts and last words had been of him. His heart was strangely softened; a new hope came to him. Granted that the best part of his life was wasted, he would do his best with the remainder. "And my children," he said, "my poor little girls! I will not see them until I am calm and refreshed. I know they are well and happy with you." Then, taking advantage of his mood, Lady Helena said what she had been longing to say. "Ronald," she began, "I have had much to suffer. You will never know how my heart has been torn between my husband and my son. Let my last few years be spent in peace." "They shall, mother," he said. "Your happiness shall be my study." "There can be no rest for me," continued his mother, "unless all division in our family ends. Ronald, I, who never asked you a favor before, ask one now. Seek Dora and bring her home reconciled and happy." A dark angry frown such as she had never seen there before came into Lord Earle's face. "Anything but that," he replied, hastily; "I can not do it, mother. I could not, if I lay upon my death bed." "And why?" asked Lady Helena, simply, as she had asked Dora.