She drew me, then, this last night against her knees and looked lovingly at me.  Her yearning heart was in her eyes.  Her hands, clasping mine, involuntarily gripped them very tight, as though she were thinking:  “I cannot give him up; I cannot let him go.”

I smiled down at her, and, as I saw the moisture veil her eyes, I felt that I, too, would like to cry.  At last she said: 

“If I’m never to see you again, Rupert, I shall yet always be thankful for the nineteen years’ happiness you’ve given me.”

“Oh, mother,” I said.  No more words could I utter, for my eyes were smarting worse than ever.  I felt about eight years old.

“If all the rest of my life had to be sorrow,” she whispered, no longer concealing the fact that she was breaking down, “the last nineteen years of you, Rupert, have made it all so well worth living.  I shall have had more happiness out of it than sorrow.  Thank you—­for all you’ve given me.”

She let go of my left hand, so as to free her own, with which she might wipe her overflowing eyes.  Then she dropped the cambric handkerchief into her lap, and grasped my hand again.  As for me, I kept silence, for my mother’s thanks were making my breath come in those short, quick gasps, which a man must control if he would prevent them breaking into sobs.

“You see,” she explained, “you had his eyes.  Your grandfather used to say of you, ‘he has that Rupert’s eyes.’”

“Mother!” I ejaculated.  Only in that last moment did I, thoughtless boy that I was, enter into an understanding of my mother’s love for the father I had never seen.  In the last evening of nineteen years there was revealed to me all that my mother’s young widowhood had meant to her.

“I didn’t want to break down,” she apologised, drawing me even closer to her, as though appealing for my forgiveness, “but, oh!  I couldn’t help it.  I’ve never loved you so desperately as I do at this moment.”

“Mother,” I stuttered, “I’ve been rotten—­more rotten than you know.”

“No, my big boy, you’ve been perfect.  I wouldn’t have had you different in any way.  Everything about you pleased me.  And how—­how can I give you up?”

“I’ll come back to you, mother.  I swear I will.”

“Oh, but you mustn’t allow any thought of me to unnerve you out there, Rupert,” she said, quickly releasing my hands, lest it were traitorous to hold me back.  “Do everything you are called to do—­however dangerous—­” The word caused her to sob.  “Don’t think of me when you’ve got to fight.  No, I don’t mean that—­” Mother was torn between her emotions.  “Rather think of me, and do the—­dangerous thing—­if it’s right—­yes, do it—­because I want you to, but oh!” she sobbed, “come back to me—­come back—­come back.”

I leant over and, lifting her face up gently with both my hands, kissed her and said: 

“Yes, mother.”

And then by a sudden effort of her will she seemed to recover.  She said smilingly and almost calmly: