"Joe ..." her voice broke. "I've been looking for you...."

He paused, walled away from her by years of isolation. She advanced
slowly; her face became terrible in its hungry love, its mother passion.
She met his eyes, and then he fled to her, and his body shook with
rough, tearless sobs. Her relief came in great tears.

"And all those girls," she was murmuring, "and those men. How did it
happen?"

He drew back; his eyes became strange.

"Mother," he said, harshly, "I'm the guilty one. There was a heap of
cotton waste in the corner, shouldn't have been there. And I let the men
smoke cigarettes."

She was horrified.

"But _why_ did you do that?" she whispered, moving a little away from
him.

"My thoughtlessness ... my _business_." The word was charged with
bitterness. "Business! business! I'm a business man! I wasn't in
business"--he gave a weird laugh--"for the health of my employees! I was
making money!"

She looked at him as if he had ceased being her son and had turned into
a monster. Then she swayed, grasped the bedpost and sank on the bed.