"Doubtless he does, ma'am--and better than his vagrant son ever can." "Yet his vagrant son has received such gifts from nature--his youth was so rich in promise--his boyhood so glowed at the dream of glory?" "Ay," said Harley, very softly, "it is possible--and all to be buried in a single grave!" The Countess started, and withdrew her hand from Harley's shoulder. Lady Lansmere's countenance was not one that much varied in expression. She had in this, as in her cast of feature, little resemblance to her son. Her features were slightly aquiline--the eyebrows of that arch which gives a certain majesty to the aspect: the lines round the mouth were habitually rigid and compressed. Her face was that of one who had gone through great emotion, and subdued it. There was something formal, and even ascetic, in the character of her beauty, which was still considerable;--in her air and in her dress. She might have suggested to you the idea of some Gothic baroness of old, half chatelaine, half abbess; you would see at a glance that she did not live in the light world round her, and disdained its fashions and its mode of thought; yet with all this rigidity it was still the face of the woman who has known human ties and human affections. And now, as she gazed long on Harley's quiet, saddened brow, it was the face of a mother. "A single grave," she said, after a long pause. "And you were then but a boy, Harley! Can such a memory influence you even to this day? It is scarcely possible; it does not seem to me within the realities of man's life--though it might be of woman's." "I believe," said Harley, half soliloquizing, "that I have a great deal of the woman in me. Perhaps men who live much alone; and care not for men's objects, do grow tenacious of impressions, as your sex does. But oh," he cried aloud, and with a sudden change of countenance, "oh, the hardest and the coldest man would have felt as I do, had he known _her_--had he loved _her_. She was like no other woman I have ever met. Bright and glorious creature of another sphere! She descended on this earth, and darkened it when she passed away. It was no use striving. Mother, I have as much courage as our steel-clad fathers ever had. I have dared in battle and in deserts--against man and the wild beast--against the storm and the ocean--against the rude powers of Nature--dangers as dread as ever pilgrim or Crusader rejoiced to brave. But courage against that one memory! no, I have none!" "Harley, Harley, you break my heart," cried the Countess, clasping her hands.