But she smiled back at him, and although her voice was very small and faint, she spoke cheerfully and as though this were an ordinary event.
“Well, you've come to see me at last, Peter,” she said.
“I mustn't stay long,” he answered, gruffly, as he moved awkwardly towards the bed.
“Bring your chair close up to the bed—so—like that. You have never come to sit in here before. Peter, do you know that?”
“Yes, mother.” He turned his eyes away and looked on to the floor.
“You have come in before because you have been told to. To-day you were not told—why did you come?”
“I don't know.... Father's in Truro.”
“Yes, I know.” He thought he caught, for an instant, a strange note in her voice. “But he will not be back yet.”
There was a pause—a vast golden cloud hung like some mountain boulder beyond the window and some of its golden light seemed to steal over the white room.
“Is it bad for you talking to me?” at last he said, gruffly, “ought I to go away?”