There was a soft insinuation in his voice which would have gone to any girl’s heart; and his eyes expressed a boundless faith in her opinion which could not be mistaken. The irritation which was entirely without cause died away, and, with the usual rebound of a generous nature, Rosalind, penitent, felt her heart moved to a return of the confidence he showed in her. She answered softly, “I would do what my mother wished.” She was seated still in front of the writing-table where stood the portrait, the little carved door of the frame half closed on it. A sudden impulse seized her. She pointed to it quickly, without waiting to think: “That is the children’s mother,” she said. He gave her a look of mingled sympathy and pain. “I had heard something.” “What did you hear, Mr. Rivers? Something that was not true? If you heard that she was not good, the best woman in the world, it was not true. I have always wanted to tell you. She went away not with her will; because she could not help it. The children have almost forgotten her, but I can never forget. She was all the mother I have ever known.” Rosalind did not know at all why at such a moment she should suddenly have opened her heart to him on this subject, through which he had given her such a wound. She took it up hastily, instinctively, in the quickening impulse of her disturbed thoughts. She added in a low voice, “What you said hurt me--oh, it hurt me, that night; but afterwards, when I came to think of it, the feeling went away.” “There was nothing to hurt you,” said Rivers, hastily. “I saw it was so, but I could not explain. Besides, I was a stranger, and understood nothing. Don’t you think I might be of use to you perhaps, if you were to trust me?” He looked at her with eyes so full of sympathy that Rosalind’s heart was altogether melted. “I saw,” he added quietly, “that there was a whole history in her face.” “Tell me all you saw--if you spoke to her--what she said. Oh! if she had only known you were coming here! But life seems like that--we meet people as it were in the dark, and we never know how much we may have to do with them. I could not let you go away without asking you. Tell me, before you go away.” “I will tell you. But I am not going away, Miss Trevanion.” “Oh!” cried Rosalind. She felt confused, as if she had gone through a world of conflicting experience since she first spoke. “I thought you must be going, and that this was why you asked me.” “About my mother? It was with a very different view I spoke. I wished you to know something more about me. I wished you to understand in what position I am, and to make you aware of her existence, and to find out what you thought about it; what would appear to you the better way.” He was more excited and tremulous than became his years; and she was softened by the emotion more than by the highest eloquence. “It must be always best to make her happy,” Rosalind said.