They went home the following afternoon, he and his mother. Or rather,
she went home, and he with her as far as the Junction, where he changed
for school.

They had not much to say to each other through the journey. The boy had
to be given time. Five years younger, or fifteen years older, it would
have been easier for him to look at his mother. You must remember what
his mother had meant to him, and what, bound up still in the fierce and
sombre battle of adolescence, she must mean to him now.

As for Agnes Kain, she did not look at him, either. Through the changing
hours her eyes rested on the transparent hands lying crossed in her lap.
She seemed very tired and very white. Her hair was not done as tidily,
her lace cuffs were less fresh than they had used to be. About her whole
presence there was a troubling hint of let-down, something obscurely
slovenly, a kind of awkward and unlovely nakedness.

She really spoke to him for the first time at the Junction, when he
stood before her, slim and uncouth under the huge burden of "Ugo,"
fumbling through his leave-taking.

"Christopher," she said, "try not to think of me--always--as--as--well,
when you're older, Christopher, you'll know what I mean."

That was the last time he ever heard her speak. He saw her once again,
but the telegram was delayed and his train was late, and when he came
beside her bed she said nothing. She looked into his eyes searchingly,
for a long while, and died.

* * * * *