She looked helplessly about the room. Why had he loved her? Because she was his mother! She would be his mother--nothing more: just his mother. She would go to him with that appeal. She would not seek to win him. She would but tell him that she was his mother. She would be his mother--true and tender and holy. He would not resist her plea.... This determined, she acted resolutely and in haste: she stripped off the gown, flung it on the floor, kicked the silken heap under the bed; she washed the paint from her face, modestly laid her hair, robed herself anew. And when again, with these new, seeing eyes, she looked into the glass, she found that she was young, unspoiled--still lovely: a sweetly wistful woman, whom he resembled. Moreover, there came to transform her, suddenly, gloriously, a revelation: that of the spiritual significance of her motherhood. "Thank God!" she thought, uplifted by this vision. "Oh, thank God! I'm like them other people. I'm fit to bring him up!" It thundered ominously. [Illustration: Tailpiece to _Nearing the Sea_] [Illustration: Headpiece to _The Last Appeal_] _THE LAST APPEAL_ She sat waiting for him at the bench by the lilac bush. He was late, she thought--strangely late. She wondered why. It was dark. The night was close and hot. There was no breath of air stirring in the park. From time to time the lightning flashed. In fast lessening intervals came the thunder. Presently she caught ear of his step on the pavement--still distant: approaching, not from the church, but from the direction of the curate's home. "And he's not running!" she thought, quick to take alarm. They were inexplicable--these lagging feet. He had never before dawdled on the way. Her alarm increased. She waited anxiously--until, with eyes downcast, he stood before her. "Richard!" she tenderly said. "I'm here, mother," he answered; but he did not look at her. She put her arms around him. "Your mother," she whispered, while she kissed him, "is glad--to feel you--lying here." He lay quiet against her--his face on her bosom. She was thrilled by this sweet pressure. "Have you been happy?" she asked. "No." "Nor I, dear!" He turned his face--not to her: to the flaming cross above the church. She had invited a question. But he made no response. "Nor I," she repeated. Still he gazed at the cross. It was shining in a black cloud--high in the sky. She felt him tremble. "Hold me tight!" he said. She drew him to her--glad to have him ask her to: having no disquieting question. "Tighter!" he implored. She rocked him. "Hush, dear!" she crooned. "You're safe--with your mother. What frightens you?" "The cross!" he sobbed. God knows! 'twas a pity that his childish heart misinterpreted the message of the cross--changing his loving purpose into sin. But the misinterpretation was not forever to endure....