My mother, hearing of this last worse trouble, resolved to try
what her influence could do. Ill as she was, I found her one day dressed
to go out.
"I am not long for this world, Francis," she said. "I shall not feel easy
on my deathbed, unless I have done my best to the last to make you happy.
I mean to put my own fears and my own feelings out of the question, and go
with you to your wife, and try what I can do to reclaim her. Take me home
with you, Francis. Let me do all I can to help my son, before it is too
late."
How could I disobey her? We took the railway to the town: it was only half
an hour's ride. By one o'clock in the afternoon we reached my house. It
was our dinner hour, and Alicia was in the kitchen. I was able to take my
mother quietly into the parlor and then to prepare my wife for the visit.
She had drunk but little at that early hour; and, luckily, the devil in
her was tamed for the time.
She followed me into the parlor, and the meeting passed off better than I
had ventured to forecast; with this one drawback, that my mother--though
she tried hard to control herself--shrank from looking my wife in the face
when she spoke to her. It was a relief to me when Alicia began to prepare
the table for dinner.
She laid the cloth, brought in the bread tray, and cut some slices for us
from the loaf.
Pages:
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339