She knew that it was for her chiefly, to gratify an ambition cherished on her account, that he had fallen into crime.
"I worship my mother still," said Felix one day to Phebe, "but I feel more and more awe of her every day.

What is it that separates her from us?
It would be different if my father had not died." "Yes, it would have been different," answered Phebe, thinking of how terrible a change it must have made in their young lives if Roland Sefton had not died.

She, too, understood better what his crime had been, and how the world regarded it; and she thanked God in her secret soul that Roland was dead, and his wife and children saved from sharing his punishment.

It had all been for the best, sad as it was at the time.
Madame also was comforted, though she had not forgotten her son.

It was the will of God: it was God who had called him, as He would call her some day.