yngham. Surely she could discuss a thing like that with her own son, to whom she had been both father and mother. There must be, no matter how deeply it lay buried, still a foundation of that sound and moral character which she had labored so long to create. "If only," she thought, "I could make him feel again as he once felt. If only I could get through to the real Philip, my Philip, my little boy." But he was hard, as hard as flint.
Twice she planned to go alone to the stable of Shane's Castle, and once she got as far as the bridge before she lost courage and turned back. Always a shadow rose up between her and her resolution—the shadow of that day when, hidden by a screen in the corner of the restaurant, she had pled with him passionately, only to find herself beating her head against a wall of flint, to hear him saying, "You mustn't talk like that. It's not fair"; to see the thin jaw set in a hard line. No, she saw that it was impossible to talk to him. He was so strange and unruly that he might turn his back on her forever. The thought of it filled her with terror, and for two nights she lay awake, weeping in a debauch of self-pity.
But one thing was changed. In all the trouble with Philip, her doubts over marrying Moses Slade seemed to have faded away. At times when she felt tired and worn she knelt in her cold bedroom and thanked God for sending him to her. They could be married in two more months, and then . . . then she would have some one to comfort her. She couldn't go to him with her troubles now, lest the weight of them should frighten him. No, she saw that she must bear all her suffering
