The boy misunderstood. He felt reproved. He flushed—ashamed that the new love had menaced the old. "No," he answered; "but I love Him very much."
"Not as much?"
"Oh, I could not!"
The boy was never afterwards the same. All that was inharmonious in life—the pain and poverty and unloveliness—became as sin: a continuous crucifixion, hateful, wringing the heart....
Late in the night, when he lay sleepless, sick for his mother's presence, her voice, her kisses, her soothing touch, the boy would rise to sit at the window—there to watch shadowy figures flit through the street-lamp's circle of light. Once he fancied that his mother came thus out of the night, that for a moment she paused with upturned glance, then disappeared in woe and haste: returning, halted again; but came no more....
At rare intervals the boy's mother came to the curate's door. She would not enter: but timidly waited for her son, and then went with him to the park, relieved to be away from the wide, still house, her spirits and self-confidence reviving with every step. One mellow evening, while they sat together in the dusk, an ill-clad man, gray and unkempt, shuffled near.
"Mother," the boy whispered, gripping her hand, "he is looking at us."
She laughed. "Let him look!" said she. "It don't matter."
The man staggered to the bench—heavily sat down: limp and shameless, his head hanging.
"Let us go away!" the boy pleaded.