She opened her great grave eyes, and held her peace. Her self-possession appeared to embarrass him, and he went on in a quieter tone. "I know what he owes you well enough; and what I have to thank you for; there can be no question of that. If things had gone on as they did when the boy first came, it would have been the ruin of him, body and soul. It is bad for children to feel themselves hated, and I was not in a position to save him from the feeling. You were a mother to him then, and his affection for you is no more than natural--within proper bounds. Wherever these are not, the devil steps in, and sows his tares. I need not explain my meaning; enough--he is now nineteen, and you are no more than nine-and-twenty. Don't let me see this sort of thing again. He is _not_ to fall asleep over his reading as he did yesterday, and the lamp _need_ not go out." He averted his face, let his head fall back upon his pillow, and drew up his suffering leg. Whether he really was in pain, or only wished to break off the conversation, was not quite evident. After a moment of breathless silence on both sides: "It is well," she said, with smothered utterance; "there are not many things in the world that could surprise me now; from _you_, nothing!--but that your way of thinking could be so base as this, even I could scarce be prepared for." "Oho!" he said, very coolly. "Be so good as to spare these grand expressions for an occasion where they may seem more fitting. What I now say, and what I intend to do, I am ready to account for before any jurisdiction whatever, and call on my own seeing eyes to witness. Lovers are blind, we all know that; only they need not suppose other people to be blind as well." "Lovers!" she echoed, with an irrepressible gust of passion. "Lovers; I say, lovers;" he repeated, with emphasis: "He, at least, is on the high-road to that condition, whether he be aware of it or not; and you must have lived these nine-and-twenty years in a maze, if you really do not see that you are over head and ears in love with the boy. You don't mean to come to me, I hope, with that trash and nonsense about adoption and maternal feelings. The thing is as I state it, whatever you may please to say. But if you do search your heart, and ask yourself what is to be the end of it--whether you mean to go on rejecting respectable men who would make good husbands, for the sake of your nonsensical love-scenes with a half grown hobbledehoy----" "Enough," she interrupted him, with glowing cheeks: "Now I assuredly do know enough of yourself and your opinions. They cannot affect me much, for I never had any ambition with regard to them. There are many things in which we differ, only before I turn my back upon you, I should be glad to hear what you have resolved upon in this matter." "As I have repeatedly told you; I am resolved to make an end of this, and part you two, the sooner, the better." "And how?"