And thus the day went on. He prolonged it as long as he could, keeping his mother with him till long after the hour when the household was usually at rest. But, however late, the moment came at last when he could detain her no longer. She, terrified, ignorant, fearing a dangerous illness, was still more reluctant to leave him, if possible, than he was to let her go, and would have sat up all night watching him had she ventured to make such a proposal. But at last Walter summoned up all his courage with a desperate effort, an effort of despair which restored him to himself and made a clear spot amid all the mist and confusion of the day. "Mother," he said, as he lighted her candle, "you have been very good to me to-day! Oh I know you have always been good--and I always ungrateful; but I am not ungrateful now." "Oh, Walter! what does that word mean between you and me? If I could but do anything. It breaks my heart to see you like this." "Yes, mother," he said, "and it may break my heart. I don't know what may come of it--if I can stand, or if I must fall. Go and pray for me, mother." "Yes, my dearest--yes, my own boy! as I have done every day, almost every hour, since ever you were born." "And so will Oona," he said. He made no response of affection to this brief record of a life devoted to him, which Mrs. Methven uttered with eyes full of tears and every line of her countenance quivering with emotion. He was abstracted into a world beyond all such expressions and responses, on the verge of an ordeal too terrible for him, more terrible than any he had yet sustained--like a man about to face fearful odds, and counting up what aids he could depend upon. "And so will Oona," he repeated to himself, aloud but unawares: and looked up at his mother with a sad glimmer of a smile and kissed her, and said, "That should help me." Then, without waiting for her to go first, he walked out of the room, like a blind man, feeling with his hand before him, and not seeing where he went.