Eleanor staggers on breathlessly up the hill, the boy seems to grow heavier at every step. She is nearly exhausted. He is like the weight of her sin, which increases with time.
Eleanor staggers on breathlessly up the hill.
One or twice she stumbles, the boy clutches her round the neck, fearing she will fall upon him, and his hands half choke her. She gasps for breath.
"Is it much farther?" she pants, turning sick and dizzy with the climb.
"No, there is my house, that hut ahead, see."
It has come in sight not a moment too soon, for Eleanor's arms are cramped and paralysed by supporting his body, her cheek pale with the heat, her heart fluttering spasmodically.
Only a few steps more, and she will have reached the haven of refuge. How foolish it would be to fail now.
Through sheer force of will she reaches the hut, and as the boy cries "Mother! mother!" she sinks exhausted in the entrance, still holding her suffering burden in her arms.