Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/454

 mother as she lay in bed. "I am at a great soul crisis. I don't know what to do. I feel lonely, helpless and . You are a woman. Put your dear arms about me and help me to know the truth and my duty. I want to ask you a question."

"What is it, darling? I'll answer it, if I can," she replied stroking her dark hair tenderly.

"Do you believe these stories about Charlie's character?"

"Not one word of them!" she promptly answered.

An impulsive kiss and a sob!

"Dear Mother!" she said in a low tearful voice. "And now one more. Papa has been dinning into my ears his own fickleness in love when young and the fact that he knows in a long life that love is of little importance in a man's existence. He says that I can forget and love again with equal intensity and better judgment. Can one treat thus lightly the soul's deepest instincts and still find life rich and worthy of effort?"

Her voice broke and she continued slowly and tremblingly, as she held one of her mother's hands tightly,

"Now, Mama dear, heart to heart, tell me as you would talk in your inmost soul to God, do you believe this is true? You have sounded life's deep meaning. Is this all you know of life? You love me. Tell me truly?"

"No, darling, a woman can not deny this deep yearning of her soul and live. I would tear my tongue out sooner than deceive you in such an hour."

"Sweet Mother!" she softly murmured again as she kissed her good night.