But on the next page the entries began again. She had taken up her wonted life-long task once more when she found that he was living. Curiously enough, while there was joy in the pages now, I seemed to read in them more of regret--in spite of herself. The doom written against her could not be revoked. Yet the conditions were changed. She had to look forward to a long parting instead of an eternal meeting, and it hurt her. Yet she must live until he came back. I saw it was her will power alone that kept her up. She must see him again before she went out into the dark, or the light rather, to wait for him. So, in a hand that grew more feeble from day to day, she jotted down her hopes and longings for her son. How much the trembling letters told of her growing weakness! how different were the characters from the bold, flowing, graceful writing of the beginning! Finally I came to the entry--the last--on the day she had received the news of his approaching marriage. Oh, the anguish that ran through the written words! They seemed to gasp out her grief from the page; sometimes I could scarcely decipher them. I turned back to the entry following the report of his death, and I declare it was no more heart-broken. Another woman had come between them. With unconscious cruelty, in that fatal letter George had told her over and over again how much he loved the woman he was about to marry. She could not get away from it. Innocently enough, he had given her to understand that he loved the girl more than all the world. Thoughtlessly he plunged this dagger into his gentle mother's heart. I didn't blame him for his feelings. He could not help them; and, as I said, it was human nature anyway. The experience is common to every mother in greater or less degree. She had to expect it, or she ought to have done so. Still, I did wish he had not been quite so enthusiastic; not that it would have made much difference, for it was the fact that killed. His mother had intuition enough, she loved him enough to divine the truth through any reticence.