With many sobs, Mrs. Belswin told the whole pitiful story of her sin, which had brought her to such a bitter repentance, and, when she had ended, fell weeping at the feet of the daughter she feared now would despise her. Ah! she little knew the tenderness which the girl had cherished for her mother, and which she cherished for her even now, when the dead saint had changed into the living sinner. Pitifully--tenderly she raised her mother from her abject position of sorrow, and kissed away the bitter tears of shame and agony that fell down the hollow cheeks. "Mother!" she said, clasping her arms round the poor woman's breast, "if you have sinned, you have also suffered. The one false step you made has brought its own punishment; but why did you not tell me all this before, and so have saved yourself this bitter agony?" "Tell you before?" said her mother, sadly. "Child! child! what good would such a confession have done? You could not have helped me." "No, dearest; but I could have loved you. I could have made your life less hard. Oh, mother! poor mother, how you must have suffered when I treated you as a stranger." "I did suffer," replied Mrs. Belswin, in a low tone, "but not so much as you think, for even then you treated me more like a mother than as a companion." "And I was the little child of whom you spoke?" "Yes, dear." "Oh, blind! blind! how could I have been so blind as not to guess your secret. You betrayed yourself in a hundred ways, my poor mother, but I never saw it. But now--now that I know the truth, I see how blind I have been." "Ah, Kaituna, if I had only known you would have received me like this, but I feared to tell you of my shame lest you should turn from me in scorn." "Hush! dear mother, hush!" "And it was terrible to think that the little child I had borne at my breast should spurn me." "Mother!" "Oh, my sin! my sin!" wailed Mrs. Belswin, rocking herself to and fro, "how it has cursed my life--how it has turned the earth into a hell of repentance." "Do not say another word, mother," cried Kaituna, wiping the tears from her mother's eyes; "the past is dead, we will speak of it no more; but the future----" "Ah, my child, the future for you is bright; you will marry your lover, and have him by your side during the rest of your life, but I--Child, I must leave you." "Leave me?" "Yes! you know what I am! You know my sin, my folly, my shame! I cannot look into your clear eyes, my child, for I have lost the right to be your mother. No, Kaituna, while you did not know me, and believed your mother to be a pure good woman, I stayed beside you, to love you and hear you talk of me as I once was; but now--now--ah, no! no! I dare not remain in your presence, I dare not kiss you, for my kisses would pollute your lips. I will go away--far away, and expiate my sin!" "But, mother, you will not leave me?" "It is for your good, child--it is for your good!"