Then at last he told his whole story. Yes; his mother had yielded. From the moment in which she had walked out of the room, having said that he might “go and tell her,” she had never endeavoured to renew the fight. When he had spoken to her, endeavouring to draw from her some warmth of assent, she had generally been very silent. She had never brought herself absolutely to wish him joy. She had not as yet so crucified her own spirit in the matter as to be able to tell him that he had chosen his wife well; but she had shown him in a hundred ways that her anger was at an end, and that if any feeling was left opposed to his own happiness, it was simply one of sorrow. And there were signs which made him think that even that was not deep-seated. She would pat him, stroking his hair, and leaning on his shoulder, administering to his comforts with a nervous accuracy as to little things which was peculiar to her. And then she gave him an infinity of directions as to the way in which it would be proper that Bessy should travel, being anxious at first to send over a maid for her behoof,--not Mrs. Knowl, but a younger woman, who would have been at Bessy’s command. Philip, however, objected to the maid. And when Mrs. Miles remarked that if it was Bessy’s fate to become mistress of Launay, Bessy ought to have a maid to attend her, Philip said that that would be very well a month or two hence, when Bessy would have become,--not mistress of Launay, which was a place which he trusted might not be vacant for many a long day,--but first lieutenant to the mistress, by right of marriage. He refused altogether to take the maid with him, as he explained to Bessy with much laughter. And so they came to understand each other thoroughly, and Bessy knew that the great trouble of her life, which had been as a mountain in her way, had disappeared suddenly, as might some visionary mountain. And then, when they thoroughly understood each other, they started back to England and to Launay together. CHAPTER XII. HOW BESSY PRYOR WAS BROUGHT BACK, AND WHAT THEN, BECAME OF HER. Bessy understood the condition of the old woman much better than did her son. “I am sad a little,” she said, on her way home, “because of her disappointment.” “Sad, because she is to have you,--you yourself,--for her daughter-in-law?” “Yes, indeed, Philip; because I know that she has not wanted me. She will be kind because I shall belong to you, and perhaps partly because she loves me; but she will always regret that that young lady down in Cornwall has not been allowed to add to the honour and greatness of the family. The Launays are everything to her, and what can I do for the Launays?” Of course he said many pretty things to her in answer to this, but he could not eradicate from her mind the feeling that, in regard to the old friend who had been so kind to her, she was returning evil for good.