It would be
a miracle if he were not. So take courage, and hope for the best,
my dear Lia."
She shook her head despondingly. "Do you suppose that my heart
hasn't pleaded for him?" she said. "I am his mother; I can never
cease to love him, whatever he may do. Even now I am ready to
give a drop of blood for each tear I can save him. But I am not
blind; I have read his nature. Wilkie has no heart."
"Ah! my dear friend, how do you know what shameful advice he may
have received before coming to you?"
Madame d'Argeles half rose, and said, in an agitated voice: "What!
you try to make me believe that? 'Advice!' Then he must have found
a man who said to him: 'Go to the house of this unfortunate woman
who gave you birth, and order her to publish her dishonor and
yours. If she refuses, insult and beat her! 'You know, even
better than I, baron, that this is impossible. In the vilest
natures, and when every other honorable feeling has been lost,
love for one's mother survives. Even convicts deprive themselves
of their wine, and sell their rations, in order to send a trifle
now and then to their mothers--while he----"
She paused, not because she shrunk from what she was about to say,
but because she was exhausted and out of breath. She rested for a
moment, and then resumed in a calmer tone: "Besides, the person
who sent him here had counselled coolness and prudence.
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