When she had finished, the false strength that had kept the woman alive until she had accomplished that which she conceived to be her last duty, failed quickly.
"You will--promise--you will ?" "Yes, mother, yes." "Your education--your training--your blood--they--are--all--that--I can--give you, my son." "O mother, mother! why did you not tell me before?
Why did I not know!" The cry was a protest--an expression of bitterest shame and sorrow.
She smiled.

"It--was--all that I could do--for you--my son--the only way--I could--help.

I do not--regret the cost.

You will--not forget ?" "Never, mother, never." "You promise--to--to regain that--which--your father--" Solemnly the answer came,--in an agony of devotion and love,--"I promise--yes, mother, I promise." * * * * * A month later, the young man was traveling, as fast as modern steam and steel could carry him, toward the western edge of the continent.
He was flying from the city of his birth, as from a place accursed.

He had set his face toward a new land--determined to work out, there, his promise--the promise that he did not, at the first, understand.
How he misunderstood,--how he attempted to use his inheritance to carry out what he first thought was his mother's wish,--and how he came at last to understand, is the story that I have to tell..