It was twilight, and the windows were open, that warm summer evening, to admit the pleasant air. The western sky was still faintly roseate with hues of the fading sunset, and the sounds of the London streets were softening with the close of the weary day of toil. Mr. Beresford had gone out for a walk, and the mother and son were alone. She sat at the head of his low couch, softly stroking back the dark hair from his high, white brow with her jeweled slender white hand. It made her heart ache to see how thin and wasted he was, and to think that her cruelty had wrought the change. His hollow dark eyes were turned toward the open window, watching the rosy-purple sky with a far-off look. Suddenly she saw his whole face change as with a spasm, and his lips contract as with pain. She knew that memory had reasserted itself, by the anguish in his eyes. Impulsively she stooped and pressed her lips to his brow, and it was not all her fancy that he shrunk from the caress. “My son!” she cried, entreatingly; but there was no reply, and she continued: “Forgive me!” She knelt down by his side and put her arms around him. The proud, beautiful woman had never humbled herself like this to any one before in all her life. “St. George, listen to me,” she murmured, tremulously, but he could not speak. She felt his whole form shaking with emotion. She cried out, tenderly: “Oh, my son, I see that you remember everything, and you shrink from me. You feel that I was hard and cruel, and I know now that I was wrong, that I had no right to write you that cruel letter. My heart almost broke when I heard of your illness, and I came to you at once--your father with me--to tell you that we repent our harshness and wish to atone.” No answer yet, and she felt the wasted form heaving beneath the touch with heavy, repressed sobs that it seemed unmanly to utter. “St. George, do you understand me, my dear?” she murmured, tenderly. “We repent our harshness, we withdraw our objections to your marriage. Whoever the girl is--and we feel that she must be good and pure, or she would not be our son’s choice--we will take her to our hearts for your sake.” She paused for his answer, but it was only a succession of heavy sobs, such as can only burst from the breast of a man who gives up the struggle against emotion and lets the storm sweep him away. It was a tempest of grief before which the grieving mother was appalled. She put her arms around him and wept with him in passionate sympathy. Mr. Beresford stole back to the room so quietly that neither heard him. He hovered over them in perplexity of grief. At length he saw that the tempestuous sobs were stifled by a manly will, and St. George answered, faintly, to his mother’s implorings: “Alas! it is too late.”