"There is no question of right--" She put her hand over her heart--she could not speak calmly of this last savage blow fate was dealing her by the hand of her loved son. "He wants to go. That is enough."
"You know I will mind him well," he said gently.
"No one can mind him as I do," was her inward cry, but she said nothing, only pressed her hand harder to her side.
"----and that he will come back to you. It is only fair that I should have him for a little while, but naturally I do not want to keep him from you, and I am very sure he would not stay."
She was still silent. He looked at her keenly. Each knew what the other suffered, for at the heart of each the parent hunger gnawed with cruel teeth.
"You will not beguile him from his wish to come with me?--I am very sure you could. It would be natural for him to stick to you after all you 've done for him--but you won't?" Almost he was pleading with her.
"Did I to-day?" Her face was bleak.
"No, God knows--and it would have been easy enough!"
"I know he needs you. A boy begins to need a father's influence, and Bran has always had a hunger for men and their ways ... but, oh! mind him well, Garrett Westenra ... mind him well ... give him back to me as sweet and whole in soul and body as I lend him to you--" Her voice broke. She could bear no more. Swiftly she rose, and with a little gesture full of despair and abnegation and farewell, left him.
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