Page:Eliot - Daniel Deronda, vol. IV, 1876.djvu/105

 mother, opening her eyes, and letting her hands again rest on his shoulders, said—

"Good-bye, my son, good-bye. We shall hear no more of each other. Kiss me."

He clasped his arms round her neck, and they kissed each other.

Deronda did not know how he got out of the room. He felt an older man. All his boyish yearnings and anxieties about his mother had vanished. He had gone through a tragic experience which must for ever solemnise his life, and deepen the significance of the acts by which he bound himself to others.