Her very soul
ached. She wept as tempestuously and unreasoningly as youth
weeps, although she was not young. It seemed as if she was
afraid to stop weeping lest she should go mad thinking. But,
after a time, tears failed her, and she began bitterly to go
over, word by word, what August Vorst had said.
That her son should ever cast eyes of love on any girl was
something Thyra had never thought about. She would not believe
it possible that he should love any one but herself, who loved
him so much. And now the possibility invaded her mind as subtly
and coldly and remorselessly as a sea-fog stealing landward.
Chester had been born to her at an age when most women are
letting their children slip from them into the world, with some
natural tears and heartaches, but content to let them go, after
enjoying their sweetest years. Thyra's late-come motherhood was
all the more intense and passionate because of its very lateness.
She had been very ill when her son was born, and had lain
helpless for long weeks, during which other women had tended her
baby for her. She had never been able to forgive them for this.
Her husband had died before Chester was a year old. She had laid
their son in his dying arms and received him back again with a
last benediction. To Thyra that moment had something of a
sacrament in it. It was as if the child had been doubly given to
her, with a right to him solely that nothing could take away or
transcend.
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