"My dear mother," said Augustine, coming up to her, "how pale you are."
She had been sitting there for all that time, tearless, in a stupor of misery. Yes, she answered him, she was very tired.
Augustine stood over her looking out of the window. "A little walk wouldn't do you good?" he asked.
No, she answered, her head ached too badly.
She could find nothing to say to him: the truth that lay so icily upon her heart was all that she could have said: "I am your guilty mother. I robbed you of your father. And your father is dead, unmourned, unloved, almost forgotten by me." For that was the poison in her misery, to know that for Paul Quentin she felt almost nothing. To hear that he had died was to hear that a ghost had died.
What would Augustine say to her if the truth were spoken? It was now a looming horror between them. It shut her from him and it shut him away.
"Oh, do come out," said Augustine after a moment: "the evening's so fine: it will do you good; and there's still a bit of sunset to be seen."
She shook her head, looking away from him.
"Is it really so bad as that?"
"Yes; very bad."