As she uttered these words in a tone of indescribable sadness, a faint smile played around the corners of her mouth--such a marble smile as might have appeared upon the face of Niobe. In an instant more it had composed itself into its former sadness, as a sheet of pure water resumes its calmness, after having been lightly stirred by a summer wind. So long did she stand regarding him with looks of unutterable love that he could not endure the strain of the withheld secret, but exclaimed hoarsely: "Go on! Mother, for God's sake, go on! If thee has something to disclose, reveal it at once!" It seemed impossible for her to speak. The opening of the secrets of her heart to God before the bar of judgment could have cost her no greater effort than this confession to her son. "David," she said, in a voice that sounded like an echo of a long-dead past, "the fear that the sins of thy parents should be visited upon thee has tormented every hour of my life. I have watched thee and prayed for thee as no one but a mother who has drunk the bitter cup to its dregs could ever do. I have trembled at every childish sin. In every little fault I have beheld a miniature of the vices of thy mother and thy father--thy father! Oh! David, my son--my son!" The white lips parted, but no sound issued from them. She raised her white hand and clutched at her throat as if choking. Then she trembled, gasped, reeled, and fell forward into his arms. In a moment more, the agitated heart had ceased to beat, and the secret of her life was hidden in its mysterious silence. The sudden, inexplicable and calamitous nature of this event came near unsettling the mental balance of the sensitive and highly organized youth. Coming as it did upon the very heels of the experiences which had so thoroughly shaken his faith in the old life, he felt himself to be the target for every arrow in the quiver of misfortune. He seemed to himself not so much like a boat that had sprung a single leak, as like one out of which every nail had been pulled and the joints left open to the inrushing waters. Into the unfilled gap in his mother's narrative, ten thousand suspicions crept, each displacing the other and leaving him more and more in darkness and in dread with regard to the origin of his own life. Wherever he went and whatever he did these confused suspicions resounded in his ears like the murmur in a seashell.