Summary

It was mother who through false love had sinned. Years later on her deathbed, as the last sacraments were administered, she confesses the folly of her youth. Her husband, a straightforward, conscientious man, had loved the boy as his own. A few days later the priest gives the son a note his mother had left him. The few lines on the first page sting him to the heart, but he does not weaken and his conscience tells him not to turn the leaf of his absolute disaster.