"Would she go there—all that way—by herself, Ranny?" she brought out at last.
"By herself? Not much!"
"Well—how—"
And still she would not face the thing straight enough to say, "How did she go, then?"
He flung it at her brutally, exasperated by her obstinacy.
"She went with Mercier."
"With 'im—? She—"
Her face seemed suddenly to give way under his eyes, to become discolored in a frightful pallor, to fall piteously into the lines of age.
This face that his words had so crushed and broken looked up at him with all its motherhood, mute yet vibrant, brimming in its eyes.
"Sit down, dear," she said. "You'll be tired standing."