“My mind was quite calm. I made allowance for you children. I could have sympathised with you. But don’t go away with any such idea. I saw your father--as plain as I ever saw him in my life.” What could Fred say? He patted her hand to soothe her, and shook his head gently; he could not trust himself to speak. “It all passed in a moment,” she went on. “He said something. I feel sure he used the word marriage, but I was too much startled to make out, and I was so foolish as to give that cry. I can’t tell you what a dreadful feeling came upon me. I am not a woman to scream, but I could not help it. And he disappeared, and they all came rushing in.” “It must have been an optical illusion, mother--that’s what they call those sort of things. You were disturbed by all of us, and your imagination got excited.” “Don’t speak such nonsense to me. I saw your father as I see you. Fred, that’s not half I’ve got to tell you.” She closed her fingers more and more closely upon his hand, and drew him close to her. “He was changed,” she said almost in a whisper. “He was not as he used to be.” She put her face nearer to her son’s. “An apparition would have been nothing in comparison. It would have been not wonderful, considering everything. But this: Fred”--she drew him quite close and her fingers were upon his hand like iron--“Fred, your father had grown a beard!” “Mother!” he cried again. “You think I’m mad, and I don’t wonder: but there’s more in what I say than you think, Fred: a man who was dead could not do that. Fred, find me words. I don’t know what to say. There is more in this than we know.” They looked at each other, the eyes of the one shooting light and meaning into those of the other. How could the boy stand the keen scrutiny of his mother’s eyes? He faltered before her and tried to avert them, but failed. At last he faltered, “Mother! I think your guess is right!” She seized him by the shoulder with her other hand and shook him in the vehemence of her passion. “Have you known this all along? Have you known and never said a word?” “No,” he said; “how could you think it? Could I have been a party to a fraud? But I saw him too--to-night.” Mrs. Dalyell’s hands relaxed; she fell back upon her pillow, and, covering her face with her hands, began to cry and moan. “Oh, how shall I ever look him in the face! How shall I ever look him in the face!” Fred was prepared for many things on his mother’s part. He was prepared to see her burst into indignation like his own; he could have understood her stern and angry, or he could have understood her grieved and miserable. He could even have understood it--had she been unreasonably and foolishly glad. But ashamed, asking how she could look him in the face!--this was beyond the knowledge of her son. After a little she calmed down and said with the echo of a sob, “We will have something to forgive each other--on both sides.” “Mother,” cried Fred, “do you realise all the difference it will make?”