‘Laurie,’ she said, ‘are we mad, both you and I? Do you know what you are doing? For some moments you have made me as foolish as yourself. But I am ashamed. Do you know who I am? Harry Severn’s wife,--Alice Severn’s mother! Yes,--that, and nothing else, so long as this life lasts! Can a woman make herself into two people? Laurie, let all this be as if it had never been.’ ‘It can never be as if it had not been!’ he cried. ‘For a punctilio, for a form, for your pride,--you would cast aside a man’s love and life for that! Padrona! that is no answer. The past has nothing to do between us. To-day is to-day.’ Mrs. Severn turned upon him, and took his hand in hers. ‘Laurie,’ she said, ‘let me speak.’ Her eyes were full of tears; her face lighted up with a tremulous smile. ‘To-day is to-day, as you say. I am very fond of you. I will say I love you, if you like. Patience, and hear me to an end. If you go away, I shall miss you every hour; but if my child’s finger were to ache I should forget your existence, Laurie. A single hair on their heads is more to me than all the world beside. Do you understand? My poor Harry is past, if you will. God forgive me for saying so!--but to-day is so full there is no room in it for any other. Laurie, I want my friend. I want nothing else;--nothing else that any man can give.’ The young man stumbled up to his feet with the strongest passion he had ever known in his life maddening him, as it seemed. His heart was wounded, and so was his pride, bitterly,--beyond reach of healing. It was he who drew away from her the hand she had retained in hers, with kindness which felt to him like an insult. ‘Mrs. Severn, I have made an ass of myself!’ he said. ‘Don’t think of me any more,--it is not worth your while. As for your friend----’