She said, “Never, never!” And with pardonable selfishness she cried, “that dying, as she was, having but a few years of life left she had built upon these few years for peace and love near the man who had reclaimed her. To leave him, it would kill her.” “No, no my child, not kill you. Let us be calm and do not let us exaggerate. You take for a mortal disease that which is but the fatigue of a weary life; you will not die before that age when we are all prepared to die, I hope. I may seem severe, but consider that you have known my son but for three months, and I will believe that you love him; but shall your love supplant ours? Shall your love destroy a whole future, for in staying near my son, you do destroy _his_ future. And again, are you sure this love will last? Are you sure of yourself? And if now, a little later, you should dethrone him. And, pardon me--your past justifies the supposition. Again, can _he_ be sure of himself? Can you both, at your ages, be sure of yourselves--of your hearts. Consider this--he who loves you so now, but a little time gone by poured out his wealth of love on us at home. Hearts will change--does not a man love his wife more than he loves his parents? Then his children more than his wife? If nature gives prodigally, she extorts rigorously. I say, you may be deceiving yourselves, both of you. This is a probability. Now will you see realities--certainties, for you are listening to me, are you not?” She answered him but with a look; a long, terrible, miserable look. “You are willing to sacrifice all to my son, and what equal sacrifice can he offer to you? He shall bask in your best years, and later on, when he is sated--and satiety will come--what shall happen? If he be worldly, he will spread your past before you and leave you, saying, he does but as others have done. And if he be an honest man, he will marry you, or at least not desert you. And this marriage, or this life, not based on virtue, nor supported by religion, this life, pardonable, perhaps, in a young man, how shall it be named, when age is creeping on? For this man, for my son, what ambition dare he breathe, what path is open to him? What consolation shall this son then be to me--to me, who have watched and tended him for twenty years? Your love for each other--it is a passion, the most earthly and wholly human, it is born of the caprice of one, and the imagination of the other. Your love is a result, not a cause. What shall remain of it when you are both grown old and weary? Who assures you that the first wrinkle on your forehead shall not sweep the veil from his eyes? Who assures you his love shall not pass away with your youth.” “OH, THE TRUTH, THE TRUTH?”