For answer, Bellamy lifted one of Bobby's hands and laid it in hers.
"He's so sound it won't wake him," he reassured her, smiling.
And for Sophy the warmth of that little hand was as the warmth of her own soul's blood.
For a long, long time she sat there with inner vision fixed on the beautiful and terrible star that had risen in the dark night of her soul—the star of a destiny as stern and far more ancient than that foretold at Bethlehem: the star of primordial and eternally recurrent sacrifice ... of the crucifixion of the mother for the child. And a woman if she be so lifted up shall draw all women to her and to each other—for this is the dark yet shining law, whereby the individual's loss is the gain of the whole race.
When Bobby at last opened his eyes they rested on his mother's face. She hardly dared to breathe, it was so wonderful to see those grey eyes looking into hers with recognition. And the boy, too, was afraid to stir or speak lest his mother's face should vanish or change into some dreadful difference as it had vanished and changed in the dreams of fever. But as she knelt, holding his hand against her breast, gazing at him out of the eyes that meant all love to him—a little stiff, wistful smile parted his lips.
"Mother ... dear...." he whispered.
Then Sophy put her cheek to his. He felt the soft glow of her sheltering breast.
"Hold me fast ... don't leave me...." he murmured.
"Never, my darling ... my only man ... never, never again...."