"Meaning it, in truth and sincerity." She gazes at him, striving to discover whether his face bears truthful witness to the evidence of his lips, and, failing, makes a despairing motion with her hands. "God help me!" she cries. "I cannot see. I do not know. But I believe you. I must, or I shall go mad. If you do not mean me to take you simply at your word, leave me at once without a sign." "I will stop and serve you." Her lips quiver at this exhibition of fidelity. Silently she hands him the paper, and points to the passage which appears to have aroused her to life. His eyes glitter as he reads the paragraph, which announces that on this evening Mr. Temple will take the chair at a lecture on "Man's Duty," to be delivered at a certain institution in a small town twenty miles away. "I must go to that place," she says. "To-night?" "To-night. I must see him. I must speak to him to-night." "You are not well; you are not fit to travel. To-morrow----" "To-morrow I may not be able to travel. To-morrow will be too late. What I have said, I must do. You don't know what hangs upon it." Her lips contract with pain again. "If you leave me alone, and I do not see him to-night, I--I----" Her eyes wander as her tongue refuses to shape the thought which holds her enthralled with fear and horror. "A word first," says the gardener's son. "How long is it since you have seen him?" "Three months." "You have written to him?" "Yes--yes. Ask me nothing more, for God's sake!" "The place is twenty miles away. It is now six o'clock. In four hours the lecture will be over. It is snowing hard." She comes close to his side; she looks straight into his eyes. "John, your mother is dead." "Yes." "I heard of her at Springfield"--she shudders at the name--"and of your devotion to her. You loved her." "I loved her." "You stood at her deathbed." "I held her in my arms when she died." "Did she speak to you then?" "A few words." "They are sacred to you." "Ay." She pauses but for a moment; he looks at her wonderingly. "John, you loved _me!_" He clenches his hands, and digs his nails into his palms. "This that I am about to say will live in your mind till the last hour of your life, with the last words your mother spoke to you. If you do not take me at once to the place I wish to go to, I will not live till midnight!" He sees the deadly resolution in her white face, and he determines to obey her. "Remain here till I return," he says. "I will not be gone a quarter of an hour. Wrap yourself up well, for the wind is enough to freeze one. Put on a thick veil to keep the snow from your face. I will do as you wish." "Ah, you are good! You are good!" she sighs, and for the first time during the day, for the first time for many days, the tears gush forth. "God reward you--and pity me!"