in thought her child, even until the grey years should be upon him, and
the Bridge of Fear in sight.

Instead, as his thoughts went back to his home, the woman herself faced
him, not as he had always seen her, but as she had been sometimes seen
by others. The deed she had done--the greatest, the worst, the most
irrevocable--was in her face, and Gilbert's unconscious memory brought
back the details his love of her had once rejected. The cold face was
as hard as flint, the deep blue eyes were untrue and unbelieving, the
small red lips were scornfully parted to show the cruel little teeth,
and there were dashes of flame in the russet hair. Better she had been
dead, better a thousand times that she had come to the sharp end before
her time, than that such a face should be her son's only memory of his
mother.

The lines of the image had been etched in the weak places of his heart
with the keen point of his first grief, and the biting acid of a new
and unnatural hate was eating them deeper day by day. And when, in
spite of himself, his mind dwelt upon her and understood that he was
cursing her who had borne him, he turned back in sheer despair to the
thought of a religious life.

But though it drew him and appealed to all in his nature which had been
uppermost when death had almost tripped him into his grave, it spoke
but half a language now, and was less than half convincing. He could
understand well enough that the monastery might hold the only life for
men who had fought through many failures, from light to darkness, from
happiness to sorrow--men who loved nothing, hoped nothing, hated
nothing any longer, in the great democracy of despair. They sought
peace as the only earthly good they might enjoy, and there was peace in