She looked up at him; and suddenly it flashed across her that he knew....
"Papa has been speaking to me, Mamma...."
She gave a violent start, as though she had had an electric shock; her eyes closed, her head fell back, her hands fell slackly in her lap:
"O God!" she thought. "No, oh, no, he ought not to have told him!..."
He knelt before his mother and passed his fingers softly over her face and gently opened her eyes. She looked at him, with a pale, terrified, shocked face and staring eyes and distorted mouth. She saw his own fresh, soft child's face, smiling friendly....
"I know the truth now, Mamma," he said, "and, if people slander me now, I can bear it...."
She threw her arms around him, dropped her head upon his breast. She felt him in that embrace grown older, bigger, stronger, now quite a man. She now felt a protector in him. But she was ashamed and again closed her eyes:
"My boy!" she murmured. "Do you love your mother?..."
"Yes, Mamma."
Her face grew calmer, but her eyes remained shut.