Mrs. Duffy gazed earnestly at her son, smiling more and more, until her pale, shrunken face grew radiant with happiness.
‘Why, it couldn’t be him,’ she said, ‘how could it? Ay, ay; I could swear it were never him; my Johnny. Please let him stay aside of me for a bit. The police may stop for him if you like; but he’d never do it.’
‘Carey and I will be bail for him, if it’s necessary,’ said Dr. Layard, ‘only let the poor fellow shake hands with his mother. There, let him go.’
The man seemed to slip suddenly from the policeman’s grasp, and sunk down on his knees at his mother’s feet, hiding his face in the bed-clothes, and sobbing till the bed shook under him. All the time his mother’s eyes were shining upon him, and her arms, still kept firmly down by Dr. Carey, were trembling to touch him.
The magistrates and their retinue went their way, leaving Mrs. Duffy with her son, while Kate and Philip Carey stood by, a little aloof from them, and from each other. The man crept closer and closer to his mother, till his hot and heavy face rested upon her hand. There was a deep silence in the ward. Outside in the corridor, through the half open door, could be seen the policeman, still waiting for final orders.
‘Mother,’ sobbed out Duffy, in a smothered and faltering voice, ‘can you forgive me?’
‘Why! there’s nothing to forgive, Johnny,’ she said, ‘and I’m so happy, I’d forgive everybody. I’d forgive the raskill as shot me. I have forgive him already, Johnny.’
‘I want you to get well, mother,’ he said, with desperate earnestness, ‘and I’ll make it all up to you. I’m come back to work for you, and indeed, I’ll work. Will you forgive me, mother?’
‘Forgive you, Johnny!’ she murmured, ‘it’s a easy thing to forgive a body when you love a body.’
The last words dropped faintly, syllable by syllable, from the old woman’s white lips, and Kate’s heart sank like lead. The withered face had grown paler, and the wrinkled eyelids closed slowly over the filmy blue eyes. Kate uttered a low cry of trouble, and Philip Carey turned quickly towards her.