But much of the evil done by human beings is as the evil of evil beasts: they know not what they do—an excuse which, except in regard to the past, no man can make for himself, seeing the very making of it must testify its falsehood.
She looked up, gave a cry and started to her feet: Stephen stood before her, halfway between her and the door. Revealed in a flicker of flame from the fire, he vanished in the following shade, and for a moment she stood in doubt of her seeing sense. But when the coal flashed again there was her son, regarding her out of great eyes that looked as if they had seen death. A ghastly air hung about him, as if he had just come back from Hades, but in his silent bearing there was a sanity, even dignity, which strangely impressed her. He came forward a pace or two, stopped, and said, "Dinna be frichtit, mem. I'm come. Sen' the lassie hame an' du wi' me as ye like. I canna haud aff o' me. But I think I'm deein', an' ye needna misguide me."
His voice, although it trembled a little, was clear and unimpeded, and, though weak in its modulation, manly.
Something in the woman's heart responded. Was it motherhood or the deeper godhead? Was it pity for the dignity housed in the crumbling clay, or repentance for the son of her womb? Or was it that sickness gave hope, and she could afford to be kind?
"I don't know what you mean, Stephen," she said, more gently than he had ever heard her speak.
Was it an agony of mind or of body, or was it but a flickering of the shadows upon his face? A moment, and he gave a half-choked shriek and fell on the floor. His mother turned from him with disgust and rang the bell. "Send Tom here," she said.
An elderly, hard-featured man came.
"Stephen is in one of his fits," she said.
The man looked about him: he could see no one in the room but his mistress.
"There he is," she continued, pointing to the floor. "Take him away. Get him up to the loft and lay him in the hay."