“Who feels for me?” she sharply retorted. “She has sown this. Let her moan for the harvest that she reaps today!”

“And if his faults⁠—” I began.

“Faults!” she cried, bursting into passionate tears. “Who dares malign him? He had a soul worth millions of the friends to whom he stooped!”

“No one can have loved him better, no one can hold him in dearer remembrance than I,” I replied. “I meant to say, if you have no compassion for his mother; or if his faults⁠—you have been bitter on them⁠—”

“It’s false,” she cried, tearing her black hair; “I loved him!”

“⁠—if his faults cannot,” I went on, “be banished from your remembrance, in such an hour; look at that figure, even as one you have never seen before, and render it some help!”