“Do you know her?”
“Of whom do you ask me, my child?”
“My—my mother,” he faltered; and now the tears were in his eyes, his throat was choking, and he turned his face from her.
“Surely,” she made answer, “I know her well. And because such a mother as this makes my weaving easier, I, the Willow-weaver, shall be mother to her son to-night.”
“I do not deserve it,” he muttered.
She did not heed him; she wove apace, seated as before, leaning on the door-post of the hut. He fell beside her kneeling, and holding out his hands to her pleadingly:
“Willow-weaver,” he cried. “If you know about her, do you know about me too? Or must I tell you?”
“Surely,” she said, “I know about you. Child of so many prayers, of such vain hopes, of so many innocent womanly ambitions never now to be fulfilled, is it not an evil thing that the loving unwise heart in that hill cottage should break through you? Is it not an evil thing in the eyes of a Willow-weaver that one crooked twig should make the whole weaving awry? Yet these things are so, and may not now be changed.”
She spoke with sober and stern tenderness. He flung himself on the heap of willow withies, and hid his face from her.
“I know it,” he sobbed. “Do you think you need to tell me that? I was going to kill myself when you talked to me of my mother. And what more can I do? What more can I do?”