Mrs. Newbolt had risen. There were tears on her old, worn cheeks, a yearning in her eyes that smote him with an accusing pang. He had brought that sorrow upon her, he had left her to suffer under it when a word would have cleared it away; when a word–a word for which they waited now–would make her dun day instantly bright. Ollie weighed against his mother; Ollie, the tainted, the unclean.
His eyes found Ollie’s as he coupled her name with his mother’s in his mind. She was shrinking against her mother’s shoulder–she had a mother, too–pale and afraid.
Mrs. Newbolt stretched out her hands. The scars of her toilsome years were upon them; the distortion of the labor she had wrought for him in his helpless infancy was set upon their joints. He was placing his liberty and his life in jeopardy for Ollie, and his going would leave mother without a stay, after her sacrifice of youth and hope and strength for him.
Why should he be called upon to do this thing–why, why?
The question was a wild cry within his breast, lunging like a wolf in a leash to burst his lips. His mother drew a step nearer, unstayed by the sheriff, unchecked by the judge. She spread her poor hands in supplication; the tears coursed down her brown old cheeks.
“Oh, my son, my son–my little son!” she said.
He saw her dimly now, for tears answered her tears. All was silent in that room, the silence of the forest before the hurricane grasps it and bends it, and the lightnings reave its limbs.
“Mother,” said he chokingly, “I–I don’t know what to do!”
“Tell it all, Joe!” she pleaded. “Oh, tell it all–tell it all!”
Her voice was little louder than a whisper, yet it was heard by every mother in that room. It struck down into their 295 hearts with a sharp, riving stab of sympathy, which nothing but sobs would relieve.