‘Oh—Jocelyn!’
He hugged her tighter than he had ever hugged her. He was raised quite outside his ordinary self, in this joy of getting back to her. And that she should run into his arms—she who never ran, who never showed emotion!
‘You’re not angry, Mother?’ he asked, looking down at her upturned face, still wet and red from her recent weeping.
‘Dreadfully,’ she said, smiling up at him, the strangest transfigured, watery smile.
‘Oh, Mother—I knew you wouldn’t fail me!’ he cried, infinitely relieved, infinitely melted and grateful.
‘Fail you?’
‘Oh, Mother——’
And they hugged again. His mother’s love was a miracle. Her voice was an enchantment. Just to hear the words, the precious right words, said in the precious right voice....
At the tea-table the Canon and his wife, who carefully didn’t look but yet saw, were much shocked. This surely amounted to having duped them as to her real feelings, to having got their sympathy and concern on false pretences.
‘Hadn’t we better go home, John?’ Mrs. Walker inquired of her husband.