'I can make none,' he had to answer.
When next she spoke: 'Then it was old hate,' she said, and after a minute he answered 'Yes' to that.
So she had to realise that for months, according to her gospel, he had been a murderer at heart; and her assurance of a merciful blank of mind and memory tottered, threatening a downfall that would prove the dear son of her hope of a rotten build. She tested his memory.
'I asked a promise of you once, and you gave it.'
'Yes,' he said, and, do what he would, 'I have broken it' got mangled wretchedly in his throat.
'Your promise! Is it believable? You could—you!'
'O mother! If God forgot me!'
Her heart smote her because her prayers had deserted him then.
'Oh, peace!' she said, 'and do not add blasphemy, nor seek to juggle with God.'
She did not spare him, and deeply she searched his conscience. Self-convicted already he was, yet his guilt looked freshly hideous worded by her, as look wounds, known to the senses of night, discovered by the eye of day.