She drew the girl's slim figure round till they were face to face, looking into each other's eyes, the dowager's eagle countenance lit up with impassioned feeling, severe, awful as the face of one of the fatal sisters, the avengers of blood, the harbingers of doom.
'Lesbia, I think I have been good to you, and kind to you,' she said.
'You have been all that is kind and dear,' faltered Lesbia.
'Then give me measure for measure.

My life has been a hard one, child; hard and lonely, and loveless and joyless.

My son, to whom I devoted myself in the vigour of youth and in the prime of life, never loved me, never repaid me for my love.

He spent his days far away from me, when his presence would have gladdened my difficult life.

He died in a strange land.