‘Ye know me? Ye know who I am?’
‘Yes; Peebles has told me,’ returned Desmond.
‘Ye don’t shrink from me? Ye don’t despise the poor woman that loves ye?’
‘Shrink from you! Despise you!’ cried the boy, straining her to his heart, and speaking between the kisses with which he covered her face, her hands, her dress. ‘I’m like to burst with joy for finding ye! I was alone in the world, with scarce a friend, nameless and hopeless and homeless, and God has sent me you!’
He raised her to her feet, and fell on his knees again before her, looking up at her with eyes bright with fast-running tears.
‘Mother! mother! mother!’
It was all that he could say, and there was at once infinite pleasure and poignant grief in his repetition of the word. He fell forward, embracing her knees.
‘God’s good, after all!’ said Moya.
‘Many and many has been the bitter hour all these weary years when I thought He had forgotten me. Oh, my son, my son!’
She lifted him from his kneeling posture, and fed her hungry eyes upon his face.