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324 “Let’s go out together, Mamma,” he said.

She smiled, glad that he was giving her this Sunday afternoon with that justice with which he divided his favours. She stood in front of him, with blank eyes to which the tears now stole, but with the smile still playing about her mouth.

“Shall we, Mamma?”

She nodded yes. Then she knelt down beside her boy, where he sat with his book in his hands, and it was as though she were making herself very small, as though she were shrinking; and she laid her head on his little knees and put one arm round him. She wept very softly into his lap.

“Come, Mummy, what’s the matter?”

She now knew what he had suffered, a sorrow almost too great for one of his years to bear. She almost wished to beg his pardon, but dared not. She only said:

“Addie, you did believe Papa, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And you believe me too, when I say that it’s not true what people say? . . .”

“Yes, I believe you.”

He believed her; and yet a suspicion lingered in his mind. There was something, even though that particular thing was not true. There was something. But he did not ask what it was, out of respect for those past years, the years that were his parents’ own.

“My child!” she sobbed, with her head still in his lap. “Tell me, has my boy been very unhappy?”