An infinite tenderness, a tenderness which swelled his breast to bursting, a yearning that, man as he was, stopped little short of tears, these were his, these it was thrilled his soul to the point of pain.

The room in which he stood, homely as it showed, plain as it was, seemed glorified, the hearth transfigured.

He could have knelt and kissed the floor which the girl had trodden, coming and going, serving and making ready--under that burden; the burden that dignified and hallowed the bearer.

What had it not cost her--that burden?
What had it not meant to her, what suspense by day, what terror of nights, what haggard awakenings--such as that of which he had been the ignorant witness--what watches above, what slights and insults below! Was it a marvel that the cheeks had lost their colour, the eyes their light, the whole face its life and meaning?
Nay, the wonder was that she had borne the weight so long, always expecting, always dreading, stabbed in the tenderest affection; with for confidant an enemy and for stay an ignorant! Viewed through the medium of the man's love, which can so easily idealise where it rests, the love of the daughter for the mother, that must have touched and softened the hardest--or so, but for the case of Basterga, one would have judged--seemed so holy, so beautiful, so pure a thing that the young man felt that, having known it, he must be the better for it all his life.
And then his mind turned to another point in the story, and he recalled what had passed above stairs on that day when he had entered a stranger, and gone up.

With what a smiling face of love had she leant over her mother's bed.