Mrs. Coe, always at her best and wisest in matters wherein her son was concerned, had never told this girl of the part which Robert Balfour had taken against her.  It would have wounded her self-love to have learned that the influence of a comparative stranger had been used, and with some effect, to estrange her Charley.  She would scarcely have made sufficient allowance for a man of the world’s insidious arts, notwithstanding the circumstances that had so favored them.  Thus Harry had justly reasoned, and kept silence concerning him.  Agnes had therefore set down the gradual cessation of her lover’s visits to Soho, and his growing coldness, solely to the hostility of Solomon.  They had pained her deeply, though she had been too proud to evince aught but indignation; still she strove to persuade herself it was but natural that this lad, entirely dependent upon his father for the means of livelihood, and daily exposed to his menaces or arguments, should endeavor to steel himself against her; that he really loved her less she did not in her own faithful heart believe.  It was, however, with no thought of regaining his affection that she had obeyed the widow’s hasty summons on the news of the catastrophe at Wheal Danes, but solely from sympathy and affection.  She had always loved and pitied her, for Harry had shown her kindness and great good-will; and, notwithstanding the girl’s high spirit, she did not now forget, as many would have done, all other debts in that obligation so easy of discharge, namely, “what she owed to herself.”

Her presence, notwithstanding the sad occasion of it, at once reawakened Charley’s slumbering passion, and the coldness with which she received its advances only made it burn more brightly, like fire in frost.  He felt that he had not even deserved the friendship she now offered him in place of her former love, and was patient and submissive under his just punishment.  He hoped in time to re-establish himself in her affections; but at present, somewhat to Mrs. Coe’s indignation, she had showed no sign of yielding.  He did in reality occupy the same position in her heart as of old; but now that he was rich, and his own master (for his mother was his slave), she was not inclined to confess it.  Had he been poor and dependent, she would have forgiven him readily enough; nor are such natures unparalleled in her sex, notwithstanding the pictures which are nowadays presented to us as types of girlhood.

Such, then, was the mutual relation in which these two young people stood, who ministered by turns (for Harry was always with him) to the wants of the dying Balfour.  The feelings with which he was regarded by all three were in curious contrast with their former ones.  What those of Harry were now toward him we can easily guess; her hate and fear had vanished to make room for love—­not the love of old times, indeed, but a deeper and a purer passion; it could never bear fruit, she knew—­it was but a prolonged farewell.  To-morrow, or the next day, Death would interpose between them; but in the mean time they were together, and she clung to him.