The remark had been caused by some little act of
thoughtfulness on Philippe's part, some little gift he had sent her,
for Philippe had always been careful to remember all the little
household feast days with beautiful and often costly gifts.
"Cecile," her mother had said, "you have both been good children to me,
you and Philippe, good and kind and thoughtful. I think it would break
my heart if my children should ever forget me, ever cease to love me. I
can imagine but one thing worse, to have them forget their God, to know
that they had committed any grievous wrong. I have sometimes heard of
mothers whose sons have been led astray into ways of wickedness and
proved a disgrace to themselves and to their families, and I have said
to myself: 'Poor woman, how can she bear it, how can she go on living
knowing what her boy has become? It would kill me, I know it would.
Thank God, my Philippe is a good boy, brave and upright like his father;
I shall never have cause to worry about him.'"
Those words kept ringing through Cecile's brain as she had read the
letters over, and over again, and she had determined then and there, at
all costs, her mother should never know. But how was she going to
conceal the fact of their poverty, of their absolute ruin?
They had always lived in comfort and where was she to find the money to
supply their daily needs? Since her father's death and her mother's
affliction, they had lived in the utmost seclusion.
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