Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. III, 1866.djvu/275

Rh "That's the hardest word of all, madam."

"The time will come—but not now. Kiss me. Now go."

The small quiet old woman obeyed, as she had always done. She shrank from seeming to claim an equal's share in her mistress's sorrow.

For two hours Mrs Transome's mind hung on what was hardly a hope—hardly more than the listening for a bare possibility. She began to create the sounds that her anguish craved to hear—began to imagine a footfall, and a hand upon the door. Then, checked by continual disappointment, she tried to rouse a truer consciousness by rising from her seat, and walking to her window, where she saw streaks of light moving and disappearing on the grass, and the sound of bolts and closing doors. She hurried away and threw herself into her seat again, and buried her head in the deafening down of the cushions. There was no sound of comfort for her.

Then her heart cried out within her against the cruelty of this son. When he turned from her in the first moment, he had not had time to feel anything but the blow that had fallen on himself. But afterwards—was it possible that he should not be touched with a son's pity—was it possible that he should