'
So living was the portrait of Winifred that I felt that she must be
close at hand. I looked round to see if she herself were not standing
by me dressed in the dazzling draperies gleaming from Wilderspin's
superb canvas.
But in place of Winifred the profile of my mother's face, cold,
proud, and white, met my gaze. Again did the stress of overmastering
emotion make of me a child, as it had done on the night of the
landslip. 'Mother!' I said, 'you see who it is?'
She made no answer: she stood looking steadfastly at the picture; but
the tremor of the nostrils, the long deep breaths she drew, told me
of the fierce struggle waging within her breast between conscience
and pity, with rage and cruel pride. My old awe of her returned. I
was a little boy again, trembling for Winnie. In some unaccountable
and, I believe, unprecedented way I had always felt that she, my own
mother, belonged to some haughty race superior to mine and Winnie's;
and nothing but the intensity of my love for Winnie could ever have
caused me to rebel against my mother.
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